Ikon shocks. Anyone had any issues with reliability please?

johnm

johnm

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Dear all.

I'm about to spring for a new set of Ikon rear shocks. One of the 7610 series which has 4 option dampening rates and 3 preload settings.

I have communicated with Geoff at Ikon in Australia and have specified the clearance for the Commando chain guard and my weight usage etc.

I considered Hagons but decided if I was going to buy new I might go some of the way up the food chain. Plus Ikons are close to home in Oz while Falcon, Nitron, Maxton and Works Performance etc are on the other side of the world and some are very seriously expensive. Suitable for racing but not worth it for quiet road use.

My only concern is reliability of the Ikons as a friend of a friend repairs shocks here and has replaced a number of leaking seals.

Has anyone on the forum had any problems please?
 
johnm said:
Dear all.

I'm about to spring for a new set of Ikon rear shocks. One of the 7610 series which has 4 option dampening rates and 3 preload settings.

I have communicated with Geoff at Ikon in Australia and have specified the clearance for the Commando chain guard and my weight usage etc.

I considered Hagons but decided if I was going to buy new I might go some of the way up the food chain. Plus Ikons are close to home in Oz while Falcon, Nitron, Maxton and Works Performance etc are on the other side of the world and some are very seriously expensive. Suitable for racing but not worth it for quiet road use.

My only concern is reliability of the Ikons as a friend of a friend repairs shocks here and has replaced a number of leaking seals.

Has anyone on the forum had any problems please?
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All shocks have leaky seals after long enough.

Don’t forget, your man only repairs shocks that folks send in for repair… he ain’t seeing all the ones that just get thrown away !
 
I have been running Koni shocks for 43 years on my Norton they are the same as the Ikon shocks you are thinking about, Koni are now Ikon, I fully rebuilt them for the first time 8 years ago when the main seal blew so 37 years without any problems not bad Ikon had the rebuild kit and cost $40 and was not a hard job to rebuild, I have run Ikon shocks on my 2013 Triumph Thruxton for 8 years and no problem at all, have kept them when I sold the Thruxton as they are the same size for my Norton if I ever have to replace the Koni shocks and I just recently brought a new set of Ikons for my 2016 Triumph Thruxton, I also bought a new set of Ikon shocks for my Manxman project bike when I bought the rebuild kit for my old Koni shocks.
Ikon Aus are really good to deal with and fast delivery, when I ordered my new Ikons for my 2016 Thruxton they had none in stock and said it will take 3 weeks to make and delivered, but they arrived in the post in one week only, I was so happy about that I made contact to the lady I ordered them from to thank her and the Ikon team, can't get better service than that, I stick with the Koni/Ikons as they work so well and you will not have any problems with them, easy to set up and will change the way your Norton will handle with simple adjustments, 4 damper and 3 spring settings, so easy, I push all my bikes to their limits and the Koni/Ikons have never let me down for great handling as well handling the bad roads we have here.

Ashley
 
ashman said:
I push all my bikes to their limits and the Koni/Ikons have never let me down for great handling as well handling the bad roads we have here.

Ashley
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I don't know if I've ever owned a bike with limits. It's usually the pilot that has the limits. Just saying
 
Schwany said:
I don't know if I've ever owned a bike with limits. It's usually the pilot that has the limits. Just saying
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Well bikes do have limits and you can only push tyres to the edge and so far, if you run crappy shocks and those limits are even less, try pushing a bike with bad suspension and bad tyres that wallows all over the place, been riding near 50 years on dirt bikes and road bikes and I do know how far to push my bikes hard and have gone past those limits to find out the hard way in how far you can go and so far I haven't found my limits yet.

Ashley
 
johnm said:
Dear all.

I'm about to spring for a new set of Ikon rear shocks. One of the 7610 series which has 4 option dampening rates and 3 preload settings.

I have communicated with Geoff at Ikon in Australia and have specified the clearance for the Commando chain guard and my weight usage etc.

I considered Hagons but decided if I was going to buy new I might go some of the way up the food chain. Plus Ikons are close to home in Oz while Falcon, Nitron, Maxton and Works Performance etc are on the other side of the world and some are very seriously expensive. Suitable for racing but not worth it for quiet road use.

My only concern is reliability of the Ikons as a friend of a friend repairs shocks here and has replaced a number of leaking seals.

Has anyone on the forum had any problems please?
Click to expand...
No problems here in 6 yrs of owning mine. Go for it!
 
johnm said:
Thankyou gentlemen. Seems we have a positive consensus.

I shall call Ikon in Oz tomorrow and order them.

Regards

John
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I think the stock shock length was around 12.9 inch mount centres but now wonder if a shock length a little longer could have been used.
The Commando chain guard would be the problem clearance wise.

The IKON's are a decent shock but not KONI good, even chrome plating is not what it used to be.
 
johnm said:
Thankyou gentlemen. Seems we have a positive consensus.

I shall call Ikon in Oz tomorrow and order them.

Regards

John
Click to expand...
John you won't have any problems and if you talk to the lady I dealt with she knows her stuff and will answer any concern you have, they are really good people to deal with, they even express post mine without the extra charge.

Ashley
 
johnm said:
Yes. But I plan to use this bike as a normal street rider. No desire to use it for high performance.
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I've got them on four bikes. Had to rebuild a set 8/9 years ago when they'd been on the Trident about 25 years and just started leaking. Great shocks !
 
johnm said:
Yes. But I plan to use this bike as a normal street rider. No desire to use it for high performance.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how high performance came into it, more so making the most of what you have bike wise.

My point with 12.9 inch centres is, that length was almost a cookie cutter fitment be it British, Japanese or Italian motorcycles back in the 1970's.
It makes for a very flat swing arm angle which was soon released in the years after the 1970's.
Having bought two sets of IKONS I never thought to ask if they could do a Commando fitment (to clear the chain guard) in a longer length. (not having done a geometry check on my stock Commando to see what might fit)

I will contact them tomorrow and ask if that is an option.

These shocks were KONI until around 2000 when they stopped production.
 
Poking the nest:

Ikon is a simple mass-produced shock like the Koni was. Koni was about as good as it got 45 years ago. I have a pair of pristine looking 12.9-inch Koni shocks hanging on the wall. They never leaked, but only have 10K miles on them. They were manufactured in 1989. If I were on a tight budget Ikons would be a good choice. That's just me though.
 
i just received mine a couple of days ago 7614 series 10mm longer than standard and black on black colour . great service and easy to deal with. There not on the bike yet so can't give any performance feed back.
 


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