I just installed Progressive Springs yesterday in the front forks. Just to verify, what effect does threading UP or threading DOWN the lock nuts from their factory position on the damper/rebound rods have on the ride? I assume that tightening the lock nuts down makes the forks stiffer and vis-a-versa, however, since the left fork has a rebound damper, it throws different things into the mix. That is, what feels too stiff a ride may be due to too stiff a rebound setting while the compression setting was spot on, as such, only the rebound pre-load really needed adjusting. Albeit, there probably isn't and never was such a thing as an ideal balance between rebound and compression settings unless you ride on a single stretch of road all year round or race on a track. Random question: when you remove or add fluid above or below the specified level, does that affect solely the compression dynamic? Most sports bikes have rebound/compression adjusters on both forks, whereas, our Valks have essentially a rebound adjuster on one fork and a compression adjuster on the the other fork. There are limits to how much the rebound nut can be adjusted on the left fork independently of the compression nut on the right fork since excessive disparity between the settings would make the lengths of the fork tubes unequal with misalignment. I re-seated the lock nuts to the original positions. Just inquiring for future fine tuning. Also, I didn't replace any fork fluid that dripped off the spring-collars/old coil-springs in the process of the Progressive install. I've read that owners usually remove some fork fluid anyway. And yes, I'm assuming that equal amounts of fork oil dripped off from both forks tubes and maintained the proportion.
Notes: you probably know this already, but a 6-point socket (24 mm) to remove the fork caps is better than a 12-point socket which I used because that's all the store happened to have on the shelves. A clothes hanger or something as thin gauge is much easier to use to remove the springs/collars. I used a thicker wire and it was cumbersome maneuvering the hook end into the spaces between the coils of the springs to pull the springs from the fork tube.
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Edit] Another thing....I didn't remove the fork tubes from the bike, and I just happened to notice with alarm that when the forks were fully extended with the bike up on the lift, the brakes' hydraulic lines were taunt to the max, because apparently with the fork caps disconnected, the fork tubes hangs down lower pulling on the hydraulic lines. I recommend removing the brake calipers and at least unclipping the speedo cable from its stay, if not disconnecting the speedo cable from the hub housing, if you do leave the forks in the triple tree for the Progressive install
