DIY Time Again: Thrust Bearing for the Coil - Part II

Tiny my pal once said "Patience is a virtue when the sh!t is free....." Well ain't exactly free but its been a long wait. 5 months to be exact since Dirty, the poisonous mind bender toyed with the idea and me being the tester as usual. Finally the retainer for the thrust bearings were done... Some really nice milling work by Kenny. Very tight tolerance. Everything was snug fit.

Far cry from the initial slap-it-up when I simply slotted the spacers and thruster bearing and simply tightened the "ghetto unbinder" down with the shock's lock ring. It did work, at the end of travel on bigger hit, the usual "crackling" sound associated with the coil binding suddenly being released was noticeably gone. However without being seated in some sort of retainer, there was play coming from the interfaces of the coil to spacers and bearings. This resulted in the coil moving up and down and hitting onto the shock body and necessitated in having to wound more preload than I would like. Even then after some hard riding, the whole contraption can come loose as discovered a few times after washing down the bike.

Now with the closed end of the retainer snug against the coil and counter pressure from the lock ring, it renders only the spacers and the bearing inside movable. Most of which are translated to rotational movement as the tight tolerance after fitting the bearing/ spacers leaves very little room for lateral play.