First, service is the most essential service for any high-pressure gas shock. Wear bands, contaminates left over from the manufacturing and machining of the shock, as well as sub-par OEM shock oil, all lead up to a quick first service on shocks. Every manufacturer is different but Hpg/Kyb and Showa are the fastest to need the first change. They are usually recommended before 1000 miles or 2 years. Fox uses a variety of oil in their shocks. Steel body shocks require faster servicing than the zero pro units which is roughly 1500 miles or 2 years. Walker Evans is best done before the 1500-mile or 2-year mark. After the first service, depending on use, the oil will last between 2000-3000 miles. The more oil the shock holds, the longer the oil will remain at the original viscosity. Clicker settings play a large part in oil life as well. The firmer you have the clickers set, the more it restricts oil flow – therefore more heat and faster breakdown. Of course, racing applications and extremely aggressive riders require the most frequent servicing.

We exclusively use AMSOIL Shock Therapy™ Suspension Oil, 10w and 5w. The application and valving determines the weight oil.

Valving is setting up the dampening characteristics of the shock to the rider’s and machine’s specific desires and needs. That information is provided to us by the rider. We can only valve a shock according to the information provided. Springs, tires, extra accessories, rider weight, and the type of riding are all taken into the equation. By far the best and most helpful information is given in the form of rider input, what are you feeling that you do or do not like (bucking in the rear, too stiff, diving in corners), that allows us to make the changes to the machine that you want to change. Take into consideration that oil life will affect shock performance. So if you’re riding on shocks that have 5 years of service with 3000 miles under their belt, it’s best to reestablish your baseline, get them back up and working, and then tackle valving.

We will work on select machines. Depending on our workload at the time as well as the machine, we just don’t have time to dedicate to the physical removal of the shock from all of our customers’ vehicles. With that said, we work with almost all local and non-local mechanics and repair facilities who can remove, drop off, or ship your shocks in for service.

Yes, we do offer this service but we need an advance notice. We ask for at least 3 days’ notice to try and squeeze in a same-day service. Also, we don’t like to get into anything that looks like it could be extremely time-consuming and in need of extensive parts for same-day service for obvious reasons. A standard shock rebuild usually takes about 20 minutes we usually ask for at least 2 hours to do most same-day services to allow us to finish what we are in the middle of and assist walk-in customers before and during your shock service.

This is one of the most common questions. The real answer – this is all rider preference – there is no magic spring preload or clicker number we can give you that is going to be a perfect fit for you. When you receive the shocks from any service, the clickers will be either set full soft or full hard from the bleeding process. We suggest starting in the middle and tuning from there. Go multiple clicks in whatever direction (in or tighten for firmer/slower, out or loosen for softer/faster) to get a feel for what the machine is doing and adjust accordingly. ONLY MAKE 1 ADJUSTMENT AT A TIME. Don’t do 3 clicks of compression, 2 of rebound, and add .5” of preload at the same time, because you won’t know which made the ride better or worse. Preload settings are different between each manufacturer. We can get you a measurement or a Google search will usually give you the numbers needed to get the ride height set.

We get this question a lot. We can’t stress enough – do shocks in pairs, if not a complete machine, when possible. The reason is shock ride quality and action are affected by a variety of things when we talk about a standard rebuild, shock oil life, and viscosity being the biggest. If one shock has oil that has 2k miles on it and one is fresh, you will get a lot of handling issues – broken sway bars, dangerous braking, and traction conditions. It’s like changing one brake pad on a caliper – you just don’t do it. Think of shocks in the same way.

That varies, but normally it is about 4-7 business days. During snowmobile fall preseason (October-December) and spring racing season prep, we are by far the busiest. March through May lead times can really swing. It’s always best to double-check before sending your shocks any time of the year.

We accept all major credit cards over the phone or we can send an invoice to you via email you can click on it and pay with a credit card or PayPal. We also accept Venmo, checks by mail, and cash. We create the invoice after the shock work is complete and contact you with the total. If we need to order parts, we will do a 10% down of the quoted price to start a build before the shocks are in our possession. Basically, this tries to ensure turnaround doesn’t get delayed by parts that need ordering.

No. Rebuild is the hydraulic portion of the shock. If you need eyelet bushings or bearings, we can normally get them or have them in stock and can add them to the final bill.

That’s a 2 sided question. While a lot of retrofits are possible and can be a great alternative to new shocks, there are so many machines, models, years, and shocks that we can’t know every machine’s retrofit. We can help with measurements and input on whether or not a specific shock will or will not work in certain situations, but not every old shock will just bolt up to any machine. We get this a lot: “Hi, I need a 16” shock”. That is like saying to us, I want to buy a car. There are so many options and variables to consider – eyelet clearance, bushing type, travel, body length, remote rezzi, monotube, piggyback, clicker adjustment, coil over or straight shock, size of coil spring, and preload adjuster type. On the other hand, we get a lot of “Hey, I have a set of Walker Evans I want to install on my skidoo” or “I want YZ125 shocks for the rear of my Rzr 800”. We have build sheets on those units to tell us what needs to be done. We know from these build sheets the extended length, bushing changes, valving changes, spring choices, and mounting to make them a bolt-on application for you.

Hell yeah, I ride whenever and as much as I can – winter and summer. While not as fast as I once was with past injuries slowing me down, we certainly test what we sell and if it doesn’t cut the mustard you aren’t buying it from us. I can’t tell you how much money I have wasted over the years on false promises and poorly designed and built products. Hopefully, I can pass some of that knowledge on to my customers to save them the troubles I have had. As far as what I ride, I am not a brand-loyal guy. I ride whatever is being tested at the time at our shop. There are definitely machines that I prefer, and machines I do not prefer in every brand. I also enjoy doing salvage and wrecked machines. This gives me the opportunity to try out a lot of different machines and different suspension options on the hot ride at the time.

Growing up with power sports, we learned quickly, that if you want to ride them you need to fix them. So we started to repair our machines which led to repairing other machines, then to racing and riding a lot, and in turn to a lot of in-depth suspension work and tuning. This quickly led to finding out that shipping every other weekend was not going to cut it. So one thing led to another of doing our shocks. Then we started doing friends and racing buddies shocks. Soon OEM dealers and local repair facilities wanted our help which led to carrying multiple full lines of aftermarket shocks, stocked parts, and every OEM shock seal that we ran across. I do have a full-time job as well, so if you call and I do not answer, leave me a message. I’ll call you back when I am free. While having a full-time job, we can’t do the volume that a lot of larger fully dedicated shops can do. But this also allows us to have lower markup on parts and services, because we don’t have a ton of bills to pay, loans to satisfy, and payroll to make. It also has allowed us to accumulate a large in-stock inventory to make turnarounds faster.