TAftonomos asked me to post a picture of his Woodcraft clipons once I'd mounted them on my bike, so I figured I'd do a post detailing the suspension and brake modifications that I've made to my 695.
It all started soon after I bought the bike. I was reading about suspension setup, and thought I'd set my sag. With gear on, I measured the front sag as 55mm, and the rear as 45mm. I dutifully dialled in some preload on the back, and got the rear sag to 40mm, but was unable to do anything with the front, it being completely non adjustable.
So my research led me to superbike parts. Specifically, I found that the Showa shocks and forks from a 998 or 999 can fit in the 695, as long as you don't mind making a few, umm, modifications.
Fitting the shock necessitates running a crankcase breather and moving the vertical cylinder coil, in order to provide some space for the shock reservoir. I bought a 999 shock off ebay, then swapped it's spring for an Ohlins one to suit my weight. I took off the crankcase breather reservoir and replaced it with a TPO breather filter, and made a plate to mount the rectifier and vertical coil on from aluminium sheet. I also cut the bracket holding the coil:
The front was a tad more involved. Superbike forks are a different diameter (53mm) to monster forks (50mm top triple, 54mm lower triple). In addition they're significantly longer. The 998 forks I ended up with were 718mm from axle to top cap, vs 695mm for the 695 forks.
So in order to get them to work, I had to remove my handlebars and install clipons (that's where TAftonomus comes in - I bought his 53mm Woodcraft clipons). I made a decision to run my clipons above the triple. Leaving the geometry alone, you end up with 35mm of superbike fork sticking out the top of the triple (23mm from the difference in fork length plus 12mm that was sticking above as stock). The Woodcraft clipons are 38mm, so they only drop the front end by 3mm. Sorting the sag lifts the front significantly.
While waiting for clipons, I did some work on the 998 forks that I bought on ebay. Firstly, I filed the seams off the lowers and painted them satin black, and I also swapped the springs for Ohlins ones to suit my weight (as with the shock), and put fresh 10wt oil in.
Once the clipons arrived, the serious work started. I started by putting the bike up on chassis stands, so the front wheel was off the ground, and ripped the front end apart:
I took the top triple to work, and used a mill to bore the fork clamps from 50mm to 53mm:
I also used a mill to bore holes in my axle, to allow access to the adjusters in the bottom of the forks. These were 8mm holes, 22mm from the fat end of the axle, and 31mm from the threaded end.
I made shims for the lower triple, from 160mm long, 38mm wide strips of 0.5mm thick half-hard copper sheet, which I rolled into a circle.
To fit the brake and clutch levers to the clipons I had to make shims to fit in front of the bars, in order to move the reservoirs forward a couple of mm. I made these by simply filing 1", 3mm wall aluminium tube into a crescent shape. This was a lot easier than I anticipated, and fit quite well.
To make more room for the brake and clutch lines, I cut the fly screen mounts off the headlight bracket (fly screens are for wimps). I also had to drill new mounts for the indicators, as in their stock position the clutch and brake levers hit them.
Finally, I repainted my top triple and the headlight mounting brackets satin black, and put it all together. For good measure, I also swapped to 320mm rotors and four pot calipers, but my standard 695 brakes also fit with no hassles. Indeed everything at the wheel end just works - no spacers or mucking about. Even the fender bolts up perfectly.
Here's some photos of the finished product. Firstly, a view of my new cockpit:
Next a view from the front:
And some detail of the shiny TiN fork legs, with my new mega brakes:
That's where I'm up to - I'm in the process of bleeding my clutch and brake lines at the moment. Many thanks to all the troublemakers from ozmo for lots of good advice along the way.
