A friend of mine brought me his VBA for some basic maintenence. I quickly realized that his rear shock was totally blown out. So along with working on his carb - replacing the float and needle - I told him we needed to put on a new shock. I didn't take pictures of the carb work, but I did remember to bring my camera when I worked on the shock.
Let's get to it!
Here we have a view up the skirt, as it were... You can see the underside of the frame where the shock attaches to both the motor and the frame. We will be removing the bottom bolt, which is easily accessible, and the nut at the top of the shock, which isn't. Mmmmm gunky!
More shock removal fun below the jump.
I started by removing the rear wheel. This will give me much easier access to the shock. On the VBA, the wheel is held on by these four large nuts.
With the wheel off, it is easy to get to the bottom shock bolt. First pull off the (14mm) nut. Then put some upward pressure on the motor, and the bolt slides right off. Note, someone put the bolt in backwards. Put the nut-side facing the wheel. That way, if you ever have to swing the motor down for other service, the wheel doesn't block taking off the bottom shock bolt.
The shock screws in to the rear shock buffer. The buffer is bolted into the frame. If you are lucky, you can just unscrew the shock from the buffer, and won't have to remove the buffer from the frame. However, most of the time, the shock is rusted into the buffer, and it is difficult or impossible to remove while it is in the scooter. That was the case here, every time I tried to unscrew the shock, the buffer flexed (it is rubber after all), and I could not get it off. I didn't want to destroy the buffer by twisting it too much. So the only way to get the shock off was to remove the whole thing from the scooter, which will allow me better access to all the parts.
In order to get the buffer/shock unit off the scooter, I have to remove the nut that holds the buffer in the frame. That is located inside the frame, and under the gas tank. Therefore, I have to remove the tank. I start by removing the rear parcel tray from the scooter. It is held on by three bolts. Just unscrew them, and the tray comes right off.
To be continued....