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Wednesday, August 12, 2009

1200S Showa Shocks

I've been running 13.5" Progressive Suspension 412 shocks on this bike for a long time. They ware a great improvement on the stock shocks. But they still felt harsh and the handling still left a lot to be desired. I knew of the 1200S fully adjustable shocks for a while and finally got my hands on a pair from eBay. These shocks came stock on the venerable Sportster 1200S Sport and are made by Showa. They have adjustable spring pre-load (4 settings), adjustable compression damping (15 settings) and adjustable rebound damping (10 settings). They measure about the same as my stock shocks, 13.25". They seem to have a much softer spring than the Progressive 412, but I don't know that for a fact.

I mounted them in reverse, left shock on the right and right shock on the left to accommodate my Easy Brackets with saddle bags. This way the oil reservoir is forward of the shock rather than behind it, which would interfere with the saddle bag brackets. The small problem with this is that the left shock can and sometimes does interfere with the rear brake caliper. This can be solved by adding about 0.5" more spacer to get the shock away from the caliper.