2LEGIT2GROM
Besides my love of 90s hip hop, I also love to mess with bikes. The latest that I’ve done was to put an Ohlins HO324 rear shock on my Honda Grom. Lets be honest, the suspension on the Grom is garbage, but really it doesn’t need to be great. I on the other hand, have an obsession, and that is to modify everything.
The HO324 shock rides a little bit better, but without proper tuning I don’t think I’ll notice to big of a difference.
It is very straight forward to install the shock onto the Grom. I ended up using a car jack and a jack stand to stabilize the Grom with it’s rear tire in the air. I then proceeded to remove the rear splash guard (3 hex bolts) and then loosen the rear tank body work. I just removed the phillips screws on both sides as well as the pop tab and cap on the right side.
With this loose you can take the seat off and push the body work down. You can easily access the 14 mm bolt and the 17 mm nut from the side/top. I used an extension to reach the bolt and used my impact gun to remove the bolt. I used a 17 mm wrench to hold the nut. I found that the factory over torqued these suspension pieces but I made sure to tighten them with a torque wrench.
The top and bottom bolts are the same and should both be tightened to 33 ft-lb.
With the body work off I also went ahead an installed some stainless steel Galfer brake lines. This is pretty straight forward as well. The bolts on the OEM lines are 12 mm while the Galfer bolts are 14 mm. You’ll need to use all the new hardware so have both of those tools ready.
After swapping the lines I also bled the brakes (8 mm drain bolt) with ATE Typ 200 brake fluid. This is my go to fluid and I recommend it for fade resistant braking. I have to warn you though, this made the rear brakes of the Grom lock up almost instantly. I would suggest not replacing the rear lines if you tend to stomp on the rear brake.
The only remaining thing for me to do is to re-valve and spring the front forks. After that, I think I’ll have a great track Grom!