Sorry for what is a longer post than I intended. Subscribing to the school of thought that the best way to learn about something is to actually work on it, I installed Elka shocks and a BajaRon sway bar on my F3 Limited. I learned a lot!

The first challenge was getting it two feet off the ground. The pit bull lift got it high enough and provided lesson #1. An F3 ain’t a Harley and it is not as stable on the lift as a Harley. A quick trip to Harbor Freight and Pittsburg jacks solved the wobble problem. If I were just washing it or changing the oil, I wouldn’t bother with the jacks; but, spending time under it with lots of wrenches is a different story.

Lesson #2 came removing the body panels. BRP uses entirely too much Loctite on bolts that go into brass nuts inserted into plastic. Don’t use an electric driver to remove them (hint, I did). Lesson #3, there are limited options for repairing the a spun round nut. I couldn’t find an epoxy that worked and Home Depot, Lowes and the auto parts stores do not carry M5 U nuts. Fortunately you can get just about anything from Amazon and they deliver the next day – problem solved.

Lesson #4, which was probably #1 is that it is harder and takes longer to take remove and reinstall the body panels than it does to change the parts. There is probably a way to change the shocks without removing the body panels, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it. I couldn’t get wrenches on the top bolts, and ended up removing the side panels, front panels and grill. The good thing about that was that I really don’t like torx bolts and took the opportunity to replace them with hex bolts (Amazon to the rescue again, M5 hex bolts delivered overnight). Putting the plastic back on leads to the inevitable question “do I put a $60 torque screwdriver in the bike tool kit?”

The instructions from both BajaRon and Elka were clear and easy to follow. Putting the parts side by side, the quality difference was immediately apparent. The only suggestions that I have relate to the sway bar installation. Pay attention to the bold “you do not need this much height until you get to step 8” instruction. I am a big guy and had the F3 two feet high the whole time. That was only a problem removing and installing the bushing bolts, it is a long reach into a tight space. The next thing was actually putting the bushings into the frame channel. I couldn’t get them in working under the bike, after wasting 15 minutes, I finally decided to trying putting them in from the top. Wonder of wonders they slid right in when I compressed the top. The only other thing I would recommend is waiting until everything is installed and spaced before snugging up the bolts, there are only four of them so it doesn’t take much time.

Putting the plastic covers back on the bottom of the F3 was a pain. The holes for the push pins are hard to see and the covers needed to be moved about because of warping. It was easier to use new push pins to compensate for slight warping in the cover. I spent about 4 hours changing the shocks and sway bar, most of that time was taking the body parts off and putting them back on (ok, and cleaning some things I don’t usually see).

The ride improvement was immediately apparent. There was much less bobble when passing or being passed by large trucks, I didn’t bottom out the shocks, rebound was much smoother and the bike no longer leans excessively in a tight turn. The Elka stage 3’s are a bit stiffer and make the bike feel a bit more precise. So, thank you Elka and BajaRon!