I just got mine from Murph's. I give it two thumbs up, especially at the price: $670 shipped.

My needs are pretty darn simple: I'm not a sport rider, I do gravel but no offroad, and I don't drag parts in twisties. I just want a smooth highway ride with safe handling on wet and rough roads, with competence on gravel and forest roads. The stock suspension satisfied those requirements, but had nasty brake dive, kicked like a mule on hard bumps, and sometimes wallowed like pudding -- those were the specific problems that I wanted to solve. I also needed to retain remote adjustability of the rear preload, since I ride under widely varying loads -- with and without luggage and pillion.

After adding Progressive street springs (11-1533, purchased through Amazon for $65), changing the fork oil to 10w, and finally adding the new 465 with a remote preload adjuster from Murph, I have met my goals. Wow -- what an incredibly more civilized ride! Dialed in properly (which took me awhile, because I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to suspension settings), it handles big bumps with no drama, remains poised during firm braking, and is now firm enough to maintain the ride height I want when loaded.

I do have three complaints:

• The eye bushing was too wide to fit the top shock bracket as shipped; I had to file off a small amount of the face of one side. It was very simple, using just a hand file. I understand that Suzuki's rough castings make things, er, interesting for aftermarket parts (as evidenced by my experience with the Scotts damper).

• The damping control feels a little wonky. It was shipped at setting 3, which is the center of its range. When I tried to move it to 4, I felt something "snap", which didn't feel good. It then spun freely. After rotating it all the way to both its extremes and back again, it "caught" again, and now I can feel the cam engaging at each step. This has happened twice while I tried different settings. The damping control unquestionably does work -- I can definitely feel the difference at each setting -- but the intermittent misalignment of some internal part doesn't exactly inspire confidence. I will contact Progressive about that.

• Despite their instructions to align the adjuster body hose junction with the gas recharge port, that was not possible. There is simply not enough hose length. It should have been secured with the hose takeoff perpendicular to the centerline of the bike, as was the OEM unit, but instead was pointed directly to the rear. Obviously, I can't loosen that banjo bolt, because I don't have the means to recharge the shock if I depressurize it. So, I had to rotate the whole adjuster body slightly toward the right side of the bike to get enough slack to mount the remote adjuster knob. This didn't seem to be a problem, but was counter to the instructions. I suspect the intent of the instructions was to prevent too much hose slack from flopping around, but I certainly won't have that problem.

All that said, it now feels like a much more expensive bike, and for a very competitive price -- about $770, including rear shock, fork springs, and fork oil. It's a pity I had to wait 32k miles to do it, but then, if I could have afforded all the mods I wanted at the time I bought the bike, I'd have an FJR or ST1300.

Cheers -d

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'08 Wee

dtalk,

I installed my 465 with a preload adjuster yesterday. I didnt take any measurments before I installed, and it bolted in fine, but when I sat on the bike it seems lower on the back end, where I am flat footed now, I wasnt before.
I checked the spring its the correct one(not the 1" lower)
Preload is cranked all the way up.

Did you notice the same?

J

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Johnathan www.motovan.com
07 1K
08 KLR 650
06 CRF 250 X
09 KTM 300 XCW

No, I was definitely up a little after the conversion. I had to run the stock spring cranked all the way up regardless of load (and I'm only 170 lbs). The 465, on the other hand, is fine at the lowest preload with only me on the bike.

Maybe the Wee's OEM shock is shorter than the Vee's, or maybe mine was even more worn out than it felt. :-\

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'08 Wee

My bike was the same way. I had to pry the stock shock out with a pry bar and trim the bushing on the Elka to get it in.

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2007 DL650A Whee! (SV cam transplant)

Manage the unavoidable.
Avoid the unmanageable.

By the way, did you have the same problem I did with the length of the adjuster hose? Were you able to mount it with the banjo bolt aligned with the gas recharge port as per instructions?

Also, do you have a clue what the single locking ring is for? It doesn't seem to actually lock anything, as there is only one ring, and it will continue to press the adjuster body farther downward for as long as I keep turning it. I don't understand why it's there.

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'08 Wee

The bolt and recharge port are lined up, the line is a little tighter than I would like.
I may turn it a few mm. Cant see how it will affect anything.
The single locknut is a collar for the shock, it looks like it should be adjustable but it isnt. ????? dunno
BTW, my top mount collars fit in no problems.

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Johnathan www.motovan.com
07 1K
08 KLR 650
06 CRF 250 X
09 KTM 300 XCW

Thanks for your reviews on this shock. I don't have a Progressive shock (I'm using a Cogent Dynamics custom long-travel shock), but I can possibly help answer some of your questions.

1) The Progressive 465 shock is the same for the DL1000 or DL650. The OEM DL650 is about 4.5 mm shorter than the DL1000 OEM shock. The 465 shock's length splits the difference between the 2 bikes. So, the 465 will slightly raise the DL650 and will slightly lower the DL1000 (about 6mm, or 1/4 inch).

2) I have not seen the 465 shock in person to confirm this will work, but I know it works with other shocks. Usually the bushing is pressed into a spherical bearing, so there will be some variance in tolerance when assembled at the factory. If you find the top bushing to be a tight fit, you can try to carefully compress it in a vise or with a c-clamp. Remember though, it should be a pretty tight fit.

3) The top preload collar ring can be tightened to place more preload on the spring. For example, if you have the hydraulic remote adjuster turned all the way in and you still have too much rider (laden) sag, you can turn the collar ring so that the total spring preload increases even more. I believe Progressive warns the user in their manual to only preload the spring so much from it's free length (you don't want to cause coil bind). If you are a heavier rider, you may very well find that you need to add more preload, since Progressive chose a pretty "light" spring IMO for this bike.

Hope that helps.

Thank you very much for your notes. My comments inline:

I suspected as much. I'm pleased to have it a smidge higher, so that's fine by me.

It is a spherical bearing, so your suggestion might have worked. The amount that I shaved off it was very minimal, though, and it still fits very snugly, so I'm ok with it.

Curious. That would be great, except that the spring length as shipped is precisely the minimum length that they specify, making that not so useful.

I am 170 lbs, and I need at least a little preload when I have any luggage at all on the bike, so yeah, it seems like a fairly light spring. It does, however, manage to hold the right sag when fully loaded, which the stock spring could not. My on-the-fly metric for preload is the ground clearance of the kickstand: with the Touratech sidestand plate attached and with the bike vertical, it will just barely scrape the ground when preload is where I want it.

Very much so. Where did you get your detailed info about this unit?

Thanks again.

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'08 Wee

I've been in contact with Progressive, and they have told me that the published minimum 7.52" spring length for this application was wrong. It should be 7.40", meaning I can now compress it a little with the preload ring to get it into a better range for 2-up riding with gear.

They said they will update their instructions in future releases.

Cheers -d

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'08 Wee

I installed a new Progressive 465 with RAP last weekend ($565 eBay/JCMotors)

1. I had no issues with getting the shock to fit into the top bracket but I can see how a slightly smaller opening would have required filing. I installed the bottom first so I could play with top bushings and get them to line up properly.

2. I'm not sure if they mentioned it in the directions you had but in mine they state due to the cam shape to only turn the damping control clockwise. Maybe you were turning it counter-clockwise?

3. They must have lengthened the hose because I had no issues when aligned per the directions and the hose pointed towards the back of the bike.

I really like this shock but I am struggling to get the preload set correctly. According to the Progressive website the p/n 01-1004 spring has 2.88in (73mm) of travel. So I was trying to get it to 1/3rd of the total travel (.96in / 24mm) but cranking down the preload collar and the RAP only got me to about 33mm (Ride Sag).

Now with gear I weigh about 230lbs and have another 40lbs in gear on the bike so I'm not really surprised by these results. Just something to consider for those of you that are considering this shock.

I've been very happy with the performance of the shock so far. It's a marked improvement over the stock shock.

If I do decide to keep this bike (my eye is wandering) I'll probably sell this shock and go with an Elka in an attempt to ge the preload set correctly.

Dave...

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2008 V-Strom 650 Black