Vintage Dirt Bike Q & A

Can anyone recomend a good source for a new seat cover for an MR175. I see them on the on line auction site but am not sure of quality. I also need to know the proper way to adjust the shocks. I was told there was a special tool for that (not the most reliable source). I am heavy, and think I should adjust to the tightest notch. Thanks

Shawn, I just bought a cover off of Ebay. The seller was from Canada. It fit great & the shipping & price was fair. Seems like it was around $33 delivered. "gumtwo" was the seller..

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77 MR175, 89 HD Sportster
74 CR125, 00 Kawasaki ZG1000
79 XR185, 56 Cushman Eagle
03 XR650L, 79 Vespa P200E
72 Vespa Super150,
74 HD Z90

A spanner tool is what you are supposed to use on the shocks. They come in all different sizes. However, I've used an open pair of vice grips to do it. You don't need to clamp them tight, but it will still leave marks on the shock, though. I wouldn't do it to a nice pair of shocks I wanted to keep or restore.

About the spring adjusters - grit gets into the plastic sleeve and between the adjuster ring and shock body, making these adjusters nearly impossible to move sometimes. The best thing would be to pull the shocks and disassemble/clean them, but if you don't want to do that, at least squirt some oil down inside the plastic sleeve and adjuster/body contact area to get some kind of lubrication going - you can always wash off the oil and grit later. Even spraying some water in there would be better than nothing. With a clean shock it's possible to turn these things by hand, even to the stiffest setting, and it's pretty easy to compress the spring a little by sliding the adjuster ring upwards on the shock body - on a dirty shock, the thing can feel like it's welded on. ;>)

Ray

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'74 CR125M (175cc), '75 MR175, '82 RM250Z, '08 YZ250F, '14 Zero FX electric, '14 Zero MX electric, '18 Alta MXR electric

Thanks to all of you for the great advice.