To a few on this forum, this may be a silly question....

I ordered shock covers for my AC 500i and my son's Predator 90. They should be here within 7-10 days. We do lots of deep mud, swamp, water splashing type riding, and I'm getting very tired of removing "stuff" from their springs. Besides cleaning the shock shaft, springs, etc. is there anything else I should do BEFORE installing the covers? For example, spray spings & shaft with WD-40, wipe off the excess, then let sit for 24 hours? Or, just clean and slip on?

thanks for "real world" experienced feedback.

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This isn't a silly question. Because you shouldn't use an oil base lub. Oil attracks dirt, dirt kills shocks. All of my buddies that race use a grafite base lube. I use a dry moly grafite lube.It works great and doesn't collect dust or grime. It comes in a spray can form. Hope this helps. Mike. [

 

I do know that vasoline eats rubber. For rubber O-Rings on swimming pool pipe joints, we have to use a special "vasoline" type cream.

Thanks for reminding me about "oils eat rubber" too. I keep forgetting about that. Thanks for the tip on the "grafite base lube". Hopefully my local Honda shop has this special stuff.

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We purchased a set of front shock covers from http://www.shockpros.com/main.html for our '03 Pred-90. They had an inbedded elastic band sewn within both ends. To my surprise, they also have a velcro strip vertically down its back side. I suppose this velcro strip great for easy installation. I was expecting a cylinder type tube, remove the top or bottom bolt shock mount bolt, then slide them on. I'm not too sure if velcro is a good or bad thing for our rough trail riding. Probably great for a show type mini. Perhaps velcro strips is "the new standard"???

For those of you with shock covers on your minis, can you advise if you have a cylinder type material or velcro joiner type material. From your experience, which design is better?

Thanks for your feedback.

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Theres nothing rong with just puting them on right away with the exceptoin of cleaning a little and making sure that there is nothing that will prevent the shocks from coming up and down

 

Thanks for your feedback. A person on another forum stated the velcro fastener strip is "industry standard". This strip exists on ALL mini & adult shock covers. If velcro doesn't work very well for us, my wife can simply sew the velcro strips together. She sews much straighter then I. I'm sure applying "grafite base lube" before installing the shock covers will help as well. Thanks for your feedback.

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i love shock covers!!!

They will help protect them

the only thing to really consider is that once you put them on and use them,,,,you are kind of stuck with them,,,,,as the grit that gets between the covers and the paint will tend to scratch the paint on the springs as the suspension flexes. So once you go with shock covers you cant really go back,,,unless you dont mind scratches,,,or dont mind painting.

Just a consideration most people overlook.

Again,,,,i like em,,,,and I think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

 

Dont worry about the velcro. It stays together just fine. The only thing that I find is after a really good ride, the shock cover on my machine will actually rotate 180*. No big deal. I take them off after every ride and clean them up good and the shock too. Then I use Tri-Flow on the shock. It is a teflon based spray lube (great on the chain too, nothing seems to stick to it)

 

I installed a complete set on my Arctic Cat 500i a few moments ago. The front covers were hard to put on. To install the back covers, I had to remove its back wheels. Call it "too fat of hands" or "too much suspension packed into a little area" condition. In any case, they look really cool and the velcro held great while I jumped up/down on its bumpers.

From a learning perspective, I also learned the rear brakes on our AC500i is a "dual assembly" system. One system is hydrolic disc for its hand lever system and a different disc pad system for its foot brake cable system. When they built the AC 500i, they sure took its "need for braking" very serious. If only ALL mini engineers would apply the same "dual disc brake" assembly systems in their designs. To me, that would make them much safer to stop.

To me, I don't care about scratches around its shocks / spring areas. We use our AC 500i & Pred-90 in the swamp, deep water, over rocks, over logs, etc. Having fun and not worry about its under belly cosmetics isn't a concern to us. Reducing the time to "power wash" both our quads was our main reason for installing shock covers. Yes, I'm starting to love the shock cover idea already...

Thanks for your "heads up" and positive support feedback.

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...We purchased a set of front shock covers for our Pred-90, and complete set for our AC 500i from http://www.shockpros.com/main.html ....


Update:

We've been using Shock covers on our Pred-90 for almost 2 months. We've gone riding in our deep mud / swamp type trails almost every weekend. Even had the opportunity to wash our quads 5 times. Each time, the mud easily washed off our new shock covers. When they get wet, the water actually "beads away" and runs down their water resistant material. No more stricks and swamp grass and caked in mud to pull out of our shock springs. For those of you who drive their minis in mud, long grass or wide bush trails, I'd highly recommend shock covers. They save me 10-15 minutes every time we wash our quads.

Hope this recommendation helps other trail riders...

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