Hi everyone,
Yesterday evening I started my forks overhaul. Things went fairly easily until I tried to remove the first oil seal holder, no way, tried & tried, applied a little heat from hot air gun, strap wrench, but eventually I had to carefully (without damaging the thread) take a hack saw to it (see photo). The problem was that someone in the past had completely destroyed the internal slots so the removal tool just rode up two nice ramps and slid around. Also they were stuck with some type of thread locking compound. Happily the other holder was ok and I managed to unscrew that one fairly easily with the tool. So new oil seal holders
.
As I suspected the springs definitely need replacing, they’re either poor repro or very tired. They look ok, clean and without any sign of rust but one measures 10 1/2” the other 10 5/8”. However, although I thought I may have to replace the stanchions and bushes they seem ok (well, to me they do). There isn’t any scoring and both top bushes slide up and down the stanchions smoothly with no detectable play. There’s is a polished shiny patch, just above the oil holes, on both stanchions and on one there is a mark running part way around the circumference, which I can just detect when I run a finger tip over it but it’s not cracked or pitted. I imagine it was the start of some corrosion at sometime in the past when the bike was laid up or standing idle for a length of time, but luckily caught and arrested in time. It can be seen near the bottom bush in photo no 2.
I’m fairly competent and happy to take things apart and put back together again, having spent a lifetime doing it, but I’ve not got any engineering facilities (but I have got a M&W vernier gauge
) nor am I a trained mechanic or engineer. I know it’s difficult to judge from photos, but any comments, confirmation (or not) of my observations would, as always, be welcome.
Roger.