So as I continue to make the nicest 04 125 on the planet 
I have neared the end of my quest for the perfect motor...
http://www.cafehusky.com/threads/my-second-165-kitted-bike-and-its-the-frankenbike.29265/
..I now look to make the suspension keep up with all that speed the motor is providing. As the 45mm Zoke have always kinda sucked IMHO and short of just flat out replacing them (I have several forks that would be better around here) but wanting to see if these troublesome forks could work well I got some gold valves for them a few months ago. Many say the issue with the mid stroke harshness in these is the base valve not able to flow enough oil and causing a bit of lockup on high speed hits and medium sized obstacles. First off Racetech does not list a gold valve for the 45mm zokes, at least not for my year. But we did find a listing that made no sense and seemed to work for 99 WR125 forks which should be the same as all 45mm husky zokes.
I got the kit this summer and due to playing on my 511 and new TR650 I never got around to doing anything about it. Now it is 125 off road time (my favorite gnarly winter woods bike) and I have made the motor nothing short of amazing I want the rest of the bike to work as well.
So I pulled one fork apart to see if the gold valves would even fit / work. The base valves (gold valve) is a different design and does look to flow more. Comes with 2 different sized o-rings to fit two different forks. I measured them up and they seemed close enough to work but not perfect. I went about installing the first one. This took a while and I had to do a few things outside of the instructions.
Base valve / shim stacks are pretty EZ to do for me as I have had base valves out many times in the past when I used to play with suspension a lot. With open cartridge forks it is pretty EZ. Take the top cap off, remove spring and preload drain the fork, buzz the base valve out with an impact wrench.
It was pretty straight forward, remove the stock shims and replace with their recommendations you get off the internet after you have the code and put your user info in. I went with their standard recommended settings for off road riding. I had two little issues. First the nut that holds the shim stack on the base valve on my forks had an integrate spring and washer for the pop off (see red arrow) and I had to remove those and grind the long stud bolt to be a normal bolt. You could just replace it but it seems to be a non standard nut and I had nothing here to replace it with so I modified it to fit.
Wish I had taken more picks and one of the assembly but was covered in oil etc. Sorry.
The other issue is the instructions say to us a base shim on the base valve before the shim stack but I had nothing to do that and the OD of the goldvalve shims as smaller so no way to use the stock one. I studied this issue for a while and decided it was not going to make any difference performance wise and simply installed the stack as per there recommendations for which ones.
I laid both stacks out, stock and gold valve. They are very similar in design and are both 2 stage but the RT settings especially for the high speed stack was a lot softer (less damping) which seemed like the right direction. But give the gold valve flows more this is not an apples to apples comparison.
I really should have taken a picture of it all assembled stock and gold valve, sorry. Here is an internet picture and is pretty close to what the husky stuff looks like.
from top to bottom...
Retaining nut
spring cup
spring
block off plate (spring loaded)
gold valve with o-ring
valve stack
base valve
My husky base valve with nut, cup, spring, piston removed but shim stack sill sitting on it...
lets do this...
pistons side by side...
Goldvalve valve shims and parts...
Stock shim stack...
Gold valve low speed shim stack at bottom, red arrow showing stock nut with integrated spring and shim I had to modify to just be a nut...
Did 53 miles of gnarly rocky rooty sloppy mess that is the norm for this time of the year here. The suspension was noticeably more supple and less harsh / jarring and far better. The more I rode it the more I liked it and the more I feel the rear sucking. I am pretty pleased with the results as is. They went from OK but jarring and somewhat harsh to nicely controlled and comfortable. I would say I am pretty happy with how they perform and don't feel they need much more work. I had planned to install these and see whats up and then send them off for a real revalve, now I'm not sure. A few more rides will tell but I'd say I am 90% plus pleased with them as is.
I have neared the end of my quest for the perfect motor...http://www.cafehusky.com/threads/my-second-165-kitted-bike-and-its-the-frankenbike.29265/
..I now look to make the suspension keep up with all that speed the motor is providing. As the 45mm Zoke have always kinda sucked IMHO and short of just flat out replacing them (I have several forks that would be better around here) but wanting to see if these troublesome forks could work well I got some gold valves for them a few months ago. Many say the issue with the mid stroke harshness in these is the base valve not able to flow enough oil and causing a bit of lockup on high speed hits and medium sized obstacles. First off Racetech does not list a gold valve for the 45mm zokes, at least not for my year. But we did find a listing that made no sense and seemed to work for 99 WR125 forks which should be the same as all 45mm husky zokes.
I got the kit this summer and due to playing on my 511 and new TR650 I never got around to doing anything about it. Now it is 125 off road time (my favorite gnarly winter woods bike) and I have made the motor nothing short of amazing I want the rest of the bike to work as well.
So I pulled one fork apart to see if the gold valves would even fit / work. The base valves (gold valve) is a different design and does look to flow more. Comes with 2 different sized o-rings to fit two different forks. I measured them up and they seemed close enough to work but not perfect. I went about installing the first one. This took a while and I had to do a few things outside of the instructions.
Base valve / shim stacks are pretty EZ to do for me as I have had base valves out many times in the past when I used to play with suspension a lot. With open cartridge forks it is pretty EZ. Take the top cap off, remove spring and preload drain the fork, buzz the base valve out with an impact wrench.
It was pretty straight forward, remove the stock shims and replace with their recommendations you get off the internet after you have the code and put your user info in. I went with their standard recommended settings for off road riding. I had two little issues. First the nut that holds the shim stack on the base valve on my forks had an integrate spring and washer for the pop off (see red arrow) and I had to remove those and grind the long stud bolt to be a normal bolt. You could just replace it but it seems to be a non standard nut and I had nothing here to replace it with so I modified it to fit.
Wish I had taken more picks and one of the assembly but was covered in oil etc. Sorry.
The other issue is the instructions say to us a base shim on the base valve before the shim stack but I had nothing to do that and the OD of the goldvalve shims as smaller so no way to use the stock one. I studied this issue for a while and decided it was not going to make any difference performance wise and simply installed the stack as per there recommendations for which ones.
I laid both stacks out, stock and gold valve. They are very similar in design and are both 2 stage but the RT settings especially for the high speed stack was a lot softer (less damping) which seemed like the right direction. But give the gold valve flows more this is not an apples to apples comparison.
I really should have taken a picture of it all assembled stock and gold valve, sorry. Here is an internet picture and is pretty close to what the husky stuff looks like.
from top to bottom...
Retaining nut
spring cup
spring
block off plate (spring loaded)
gold valve with o-ring
valve stack
base valve
My husky base valve with nut, cup, spring, piston removed but shim stack sill sitting on it...
lets do this...
pistons side by side...
Goldvalve valve shims and parts...
Stock shim stack...
Gold valve low speed shim stack at bottom, red arrow showing stock nut with integrated spring and shim I had to modify to just be a nut...
Did 53 miles of gnarly rocky rooty sloppy mess that is the norm for this time of the year here. The suspension was noticeably more supple and less harsh / jarring and far better. The more I rode it the more I liked it and the more I feel the rear sucking. I am pretty pleased with the results as is. They went from OK but jarring and somewhat harsh to nicely controlled and comfortable. I would say I am pretty happy with how they perform and don't feel they need much more work. I had planned to install these and see whats up and then send them off for a real revalve, now I'm not sure. A few more rides will tell but I'd say I am 90% plus pleased with them as is.
