Somebody changed my fork springs?

[Keith H]

I'm in the middle of replacing fork seals & wipers on my GS650GLZ. The service manual shows two springs in each fork, with various spacers and bushings. When tearing them down, I found 21.25" springs, and no bushings or spacers. (The service manual shows an 18" and 6" [approx] spring in each fork.) Any idea what happened here? Should I do something about it?

Keith

[Baatfam]

Are the coils tighter at one end?
In other words, are they progressive springs?

[Keith H]

Nope....the rate of "coilage" is linear from one end to another. The diameter is slightly smaller at one end, though.

[mike_of_bbg]

The service manual may show two springs, but it probably also covers multiple years. Since yours is a GLZ, that means it's an 82. With the GS550LZ, they changed quite a bit about the fork over the previous years (as I've recently discovered). Prior years did have multi-part springs, but the stock spring for 82 was a one-piece (mine was also about 21.25" long). The GS550 and GS650 shared a lot of common parts, so it stands to reason your story would be similar. And the parts fiche for a 650GLZ also shows only one spring.

Based on that I'd say you don't HAVE to do anything. Whether or not you WANT to is another story. Those springs are 28 years old and didn't have a great reputation when they were new. Time won't have helped their performance. You should probably measure your sag and consider progressive brand springs if you're pushing more than 2" or so of sag.

[Keith H]

Thank you, Mike. I'll assemble them the way they came apart...and decide what to do afterwards. Would also explain why I want to run so much air [15psi] to make them feel right. Or....maybe experiment with a spacer for now.