How to Adjust Seat Height on 500SL Pantah

[fightingpantah]

Hi Guys

Any advice on how to adjust the seat height on a 500SL Pantah. Seat needs to be recovered so I assume I can get it rebuild a little lower in profile, but are there any other adjustments I can do.

Thanks in advance Guys.

[fightingpantah]

Found it - it's over here.

Yes while dismantling the Pantah to isoalte a blinker issue I found the adjusters for the rear suspension.

Anyone know if there is a rule of thumb if I lower the rear by one or two bolt holes how much do i need to lower the front.

Are there some reference marks I can use to line up the bike to make sure it is balanced??

Cach ya

Shane

[Vince]

bolt holes ????,There should be a typical stepped shoulder spring preload adjuster that rotates with a C spanner.As with all suspension ride hight setups typically you adjust to get a sag with you seated and all your weight on the bike at 1/3 of travel.You need the wheel to have the ability to go up and down.This wont help your high seat hight problem,you can set this to lower the seat but it won't handle as well as it could,lowering the rear alone slows the steering,makes it more chopper like.Set the front sag the same via varying the preload on the spring at the top of the forks.,BTW how much do you weigh, std design weight is 80kg.Pushing the forks through the trees has the same effect as lowering or raising the rear,they are kinda slow steering,20mm through is at the extreme end,5 to 10 is more normal,make sure that with the fork bottomed the front guard does not touch anything.Push them through 10mm and go for a spin and see what you think,it might end up a bit unstable,flappy or more prone to tankslapping on bumpy corners,it should be ok but test it out slowly

[fightingpantah]

Thanks for the advice Vince.

This sounds more complicated than I thought (being an absolute newbee to bikes)

Things like this may be best left to a professional to adjust for me. The last thing i want to do is make some change and stuff up the ride of the bike.

Thanks for your advice and I will post what I did when i get closer to doing the ride heoight adjustment.

Catch ya

Shane

[Vince]

Mate done be scared,its very basic stuff and I probably went overboard with the tech stuff,as much fun can be had setting them up to suit your body type as actualy riding them,and you get to learn about how a bike behaves,bigest problem is some of this stuff takes 2 people,its a bit hard sitting on it and seeing how much sharft is still exsposed on the rear shock.Try sitting on the seat and seeing how much of the shiny sharft is still sticking up behind the spring on the shock,from fully up with the wheel off the ground to you sitting on it should take up 1/3 of it,give or take a bit.The more preload the less sharft is seen,easily reverable if you dont like it,make sure you do the same to both sides

[fightingpantah]

No probs Vince

So with my full weight (around 85kgs) on the rear I need the rear shock to move around 1/3 of their travel.

I will see how I go when I get to it. I have done quite a bit of mechanical work on cars (mainly old Alfa's), but i want to see how the bike handles first and then as you said adjust it and carefully test the ride.

Catch ya and thanks for your help.

Shane