Changing fork oil
Wifes new bike first real look around. Ok i thought i would do the "lazy fork mod" of leaving the forks on the bike and just unscrewing the cap syringe the oil out and replace with fresh and pop a few extra washers in there. Upon starting the job i noticed one of the dust caps was a little chewed, had new seals then i thought....... how wrong was i the fork seal under the dust cap was a right mess. I removed that fork leg first, removed the top cap hooked out the spacer, washer and spring and then tipped over a tub to empty the oil, empty the oil, i said empty the oil.... no oil just a splash of water :o. I then spent 40min ringing around local shops to try and find some new fork seals with no joy, so only having a 8mm allen key which was not looking like undoing the bottom damper bolts i decided to take the forks to local garage and get them to crack the bolts, he said leave with and collect in a couple of hours. At this point i had a message from one of the shops i had rung saying one of their other shops had seals yeh! 2hrs later i was back home with new seals and back off to the garage to get the forks. Damper rod bolt removed and now spent the next hour slide hammering the seal out... and yes i did remove the clip. It was that well rusted in i had to heat the forks and bang the s__t out of it to get it to move. Second fork leg took 1 quick slide and poped apart. All parts cleaned, damper rod re inserted, filled with oil and set level, spring, extra washers added (10mm) and spacer and all fitted back to bike torqued up correctly. 8:45am start walked out of garage 6:20pm absolutely knackered but enjoyed myself on the whole!!
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