Fork Rebuild

This information was taken from a series of posts by Bill Royal, STOC 1137 - http://www.silverstreakst.net/.  They are largely unedited - only reformatted.

I finally got a stretch of time between riding events, and family visits, and other maintenance that might allow it and even the fork tool kit that John O put together was available! EGADS - no more excuses.

So after a weekend of riding and a Monday back to work, I start. Easy enough to begin with. Remove the handle bar trim plastic and the front fender - the only plastic necessary to remove for this procedure.
Then, the brake calipers, hanging them carefully from the fairing with cable ties, and finally, off with the front wheel. Not bad really, about an hours worth of work and I called it a night.

Next night I am back at it, this time with my air tools and the 6mm hex bit (extra long from John's kit) and a couple squeezes from the trigger and the right fork's lower allen screw cracks open - yahoo! So it's off to the left fork and that's where my first bump in the road occurs. Applying the same technique as I did on the right side, but this time the result is the allen bit stripping the head of the screw - oh well, at least I was prepared (once again thanks to John O's advice) as I had ordered a pair of new screws along with the recommended replacement washers. So I leave this part for now and move up to the fork caps. Once again, the right fork is no problem. After loosening the upper fork clamp screws, the right fork cap loosens as expected with just my hand socket wrench. I move over to the left one and damn, it just isn't budging! I double check the clamp screw to be sure I wasn't dreaming when I thought I loosened it, and no, it's plenty loose. So out comes the 2 ft. breaker bar - this should do it.  Damn! Still won't budge. Now I am getting concerned... I had this left fork off about a year ago when it leaked and rather than tackle the pair at the time I took the fork up to my local dealer and had them replace the seals. So they did that and two days later, I simply re-installed the fork, never feeling the need to check the cap or anything else on that fork for that matter. So my final attempt is with my 1/2 in drive air wrench through the 3/8 reducer to fit John O's custom made fork cap hex drive socket. Ratta-tat-tat-tat - not a budge. Another burst again - still no budge. I triple check my upper pinch bolt - yes if I loosen it any more it will fall out. So, Ratta-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat - it seems to maybe be moving ever so slightly, but as I look closer I see that the cap itself hasn't moved at all - it's the drive reducer now deformed to about 45 degrees of it's normal orientation. This sucked it on there and I'm obviously not gonna get it off. I am pretty pissed at this point, already cursing the dealer 'cause I know THEY were the last ones to remove and replace this fork cap... The torque spec is just 14 ft-lbs!

So I give up for the night, resigned to the fact that I NEED to bring this fork to the dealer and am mentally preparing for the words that I will need to get them to understand that they should be removing the cap for gratis labor and that IF the threads are stripped it's gonna be on THEM! Well, that plan is going to have me delayed 4 more days until the weekend because that's the first I can make it in person to the dealer. Rather than wait, I recruit my lovely better half to run the one fork up there and I prepare her with the details so she can at least state the case. So Thurs AM she runs the left fork up to the dealer, brings it in and hands it to the owner and give him the story.
He takes it out back, and had his mechanics take a crack at it whilst he returns up front to conduct some other business. This is all important facts as will become apparent in a little bit... About 10 minutes go by and the mechanic shows up in front of the parts desk with the fork cap loosened. - No charge. When I get home that night I an very greatly relieved to see that the threads are fine - I can only begin to imagine what torque they put that cap on to in the first place but I know for sure it's WAY beyond 14 ft-lbs!

So that night is billiards night and I almost never work on a Friday night so all is status quo until that Saturday. Then I'm at it disassembling the right fork. It's pretty straight forward, albeit a bit messy. That fork oil is very slippery and it just runs on anything it touches. I get the fork apart and let the pieces "drain" into a basin lined with towels to absorb the oil. Then, it's on to my next challenge - drilling out the right fork's stripped lower cap screw.  After a bit of guessing I settle on a 3/8 drill bit and chuck it up. I lay the fork on the work bench with the head butted up against the wall so I can give good pressure on the bit as I drill. I wind it up and start drilling. I keep checking as I am worried about drilling too far and perhaps drilling into the fork base itself. Every 30-40 second of drilling and I pull it out and blow the shavings away with compressed air. I am getting what I think it close to being too deep and it still hasn't come loose yet, so I decide to switch to a smaller bit. One that I am sure won't enlarge the fork hole if I go too deep. A minute or two more with that and I can see that I am clearly deeper than the surface of the fork, so I go back to the 3/8 bit and with a final 20 second spin of that I feel the bolt come free. I pull out the bit ant the head of the screw falls out on the floor. I tip the fork up and despite having drained it for some time prior to this it's still dripping fork oil all over the place! Anyway, long story short, I now have the bolt out and it doesn't appear that I'm munged the fork base at all in the process. Of course the copper washer is still stuck to the fork and it takes another few minutes of careful digging and prying with various implements to dislodge it but eventually it too comes off. I note that the washer, as well as the threads on the bolt appear to have some sort of clear looking hardened "goop" on them and I wonder if that isn't factory applied thread sealant run amok attributing to the excessive recalcitrance of the bolt. Sure am glad I took John O's advice and ordered the bolts!  That all consumes about a half a days labor and I have other chores to attend to so that's it for this Saturday.

Sunday, I remove the parts from the drip pan, and wipe them all clean and try to clean up the various spills and clean up the tools. Then, it's on to assembly. I take the right fork first (hoping to have continued success with right first!) and it all goes together pretty well. I do use a very small amount of blue locktite on the lower allen bolt as I hope to avoid any problems removing it in the future. Then the new slider on the lower end of the fork tube and the tube go in place. Now to assemble the upper busing. John's tool takes a little adjusting and the bushing goes in about half way with a few gentle taps of the hammer against a piece of 2/4 used to protect the end of the PVC Pipe tool. Then I reverse the tool and use the other end to drive it in a bit more, and then finally the last 1/4 in or so I used a long rather large sized flat head screw drive. John's kit does contain a custom made bronze drift but my big paws find it a bit tedious to use so I opt for the screwdriver. I am careful to go slow and not scratch the fork tubes, and it takes a few taps at each of the
4 90 degree compass points to fully seat the busing. Next is the fork seals - the only concerns here is proper orientation and not damaging them as you push them down over the tubes. The manual suggests applying tape over the rim of the tubes, but I didn't do that and found it not a problem to carefully push them down evenly over the tubes with out damage. Of course, a generous wiping with fork oil on each of these part helped a lot. I also ordered and there for replace the spring clips that hold the seals in place though I probably could have reused the originals. Finally the dust seals slide on and using the pvc tool drive them home and we're almost done.

This is the point where you fill the forks with oil and set the level.  I had no idea of exactly how much to fill with in the first place so I just dumped a little less than half the one container I had in. That turned out to be a fair bit more than necessary because when I went in the "turkey baster" it quickly filled the lower tube, then the upper tube and finally into the bulb itself where it proceeded to start leaking like a sieve all over the place. Did I mention to NOT attempt this in the kitchen? Fortunately I was in the garage so no harm, no foul. I clean up the mess and try again, this time only getting a bit more oil out before I can tell I've got the proper level set.

I set this fork aside and set upon the recalcitrant left fork. For all the trouble it gave me earlier, it goes together easily and it's not long before I have it all rebuilt and filled with oil. Now for the fun part. I set the springs into each of the forks and it's only then that I realize these puppies are a fair bit longer then the stockers! I'm thinking it's gonna be a B$%*& to get them compressed. I soon see that there is just NO WAY to do the rest of this alone so I call up one of my buddies from down the block and he comes over to give me a hand. I also take a Bud break.

We start with the right fork now. Together with him holding the fork steady and holding the "rod tool" to hold the damper up and ready to insert the keeper I use a pair of flat tire irons through the spring coils to compress them down until he can insert the keeper (this is the right fork). He has to let go of the damper for a sec to do this since ho too only has two hands but he is able to get it in quickly and we're just about done here. Push the damper all the way down, remove the tool and now to put the cap on. Once again, he steadies the fork by holding the tube while I use the custom made cap allen socket as I begin to get the threads engaged he also turns the tube counter-clockwise thus speeding up the thread in and voila - it comes together like a charm. The left fork is next, and even though it has a longer spacer it's still easier overall to get together.

A short note about spacers. The Progressive manual calls for cutting down the factory spacer on the left leg to 3.25 in. and doing away with the shorter one in the right leg all together. But seeing as I am such "big" boy these days (~275 or so), and having read about someone else who went with a larger spacer before and was happy with it I decide to go that route. The recommendation is to use Sched 40 PVC pipe, 1 in. diameter. What no one has mentioned to date is how to cut that so that it's square. There are the "ring around cutters that will cut a nice square pipe cut, but the small ones say up to 1 in. So I buy one and get it home only to find that 1" pipe means the ID of the pipe. The OD of the pipe is more like 1 1/4 ", or just over the 1 1/8 capacity of the cutters. The larger cutters of this type run about $30 so no way I'm going that route. The ratchet knife cutter is affordable at $9 but it will NOT cut a nice straight cut! So, on my third trip to the Home Depot I am looking around and I spy the 3/4 Sched 40 couples - they are exactly the correct OD, and exactly 2 in long each. I hadn't yet decided on exactly what length spacer I was going with but two of these puppies together made 4 " or just 3/4 longer than the recommended length. Since I already heard that someone had gone 5/8 longer and been happy, I decided that 3/4 over was gonna work just fine for me. Now, that meant I still needed to cut a 3/4 spacer for the right fork but I used the knife cutter and then dremeled the crooked cut even to get the right dimension. So if you go this route be prepared,. Yes you can saw it off but it's still tricky to get a nice even cut and it's messy but that can also be made to work. Also note that using longer spacers does add to the woes of assembling the caps on but I was able to do so in spite of this.

So, that wraps up another night. It's off to work for me on Monday and that night I plan to put the forks back onto the bike and be done.  Well, not so fast... I get the forks back on the bike and the wheel back on and am in the process of bolting the calipers back on when I hit yet another snag. Remember that wayward left fork I had to send up to the dealer to remove the #$%(*)*@^ fork cap off? Well there's a little collar bushing that sets inside of a needle bearing that is where the upper caliper bolt for the left caliper screws through. As I am attempting to torque that allen head cap screw in it feels like I may have stripped the threads! No way _ I am set at only half the spec'd torque. Closer inspection shows that the collar that the bolt torques down on is missing. I look all over the garage for it and it's nowhere. I clean up the work bench cleaner than it=92s been since I moved in and still no luck... Now that part was on that fork when I removed it and if it's not anywhere in the garage it HAS to be only two other places. Either my honey's car or at the dealers. Well a thorough search of the car turns up noting... CRAP! Another run in with the dealer is in the offing. Next day I call up there and get the owner on the horn. I tell him about the missing part and he immediately denies it's anywhere in his shop. He swears to me that when my bride handed him the fork, he walked it out back and "held it in my hands" while the mechanic put the air wrench to it and that was it. It loosens up and he walks it back out to my honey. Bull pucky I am thinking. I already KNOW that's a crock. For one thing, she was very clear that he came back out and waited on customers and the mechanic brought it back out in about 10 minutes. Secondly there is NO WAY he "held it in his hands" when I busted off an adapter and it still hadn't budged. Give me a break! Lying B)#&%)* I can see this is going nowhere so and OF COURSE they do not have the part in stock so I have nothing to do nut order up a new one and wait for it...

OK, fast forward 4 more days - I finally have the part in hand and the rest of the assembly goes as it should The bike is back together and I take it for a test spin. It feels NICE And no noise (squeaking) from the forks as I had heard some say they experienced. Only after a full day's ride will I really know the verdict however. The next day I get in a nice 300 mile ride through the back roads of Florida that even most of the natives don't know about. Man the ride is sweeeeet. Gone is the vertical oscillations I had as if I was riding down a washboard even when I was on smooth pavement. When I enter a turn the forks take their "set" and stay planed unlike before when I could feel them set and then unload a bit. I have not measured sag yet, but I can tell it's raised some by how I don't have to raise the bike so far toward vertical to get it off the side stand. Overall I am way more than pleased with the results. Only regret is not doing them earlier!

So that's the saga of my fork rebuild. Only thing left to do now is return the kit to John Oosterhuis with my sincerest of thanks and encourage anyone out there who is thinking about it to go for it. I am kinda thinking that if you ST has anywhere near 100K on it (mine's an
104,500) and especially if you still have the stock springs, and even more so if you are not the average japanese weight - you probably NEED to do them!