Nightmare day

[DamoK4]

Hi guys, hopefully someone can help me. I’m part way through taking my forks off to do the fork springs and oil and to re spray them. So the wheels off, top nut loosened, tried to take the mudguard off and every screw just strips, screw removal tool not getting them out so I figured I’d take the forks off and drill them out and re helicoil them later. So a few questions:

Do you guys take the front fairing off? It’s a royal pain in the ass to get at the bolts

Are the clip ons connected to the forks? It looks like they are, the YouTube video I’m following is a naked bike and it looks so much easier.

I’ve been at this for hours, I’m tempted to put her back together and take it to a garage

[Adam Ef]

I never took the fairings off to remove my forks. It's a bit of a tight fit but I found moving the handlebars full left or right depending on which side you're trying to undo helped.


Clip ons are on the forks too so they need to be undone and held / removed when you slide the fork leg down to remove.


Also, before you begin, undo the top triple clamp bolts and undo the top caps slightly (a turn or so) while the forks are still on the bike (held by the lower clamps) otherwise it might be a struggle to do it when they're off. Don't try it with the top clamps tightened down though as they'll be pinching the top of the forks and make it hard toundo the top caps. Hope that makes sense?


Persevere. It will be worth it once you'd done it. It might take a while but you'll be quicker next time you do it. I try to enjoy the time I get working on bikes. I'm not fast at it and usually learning as I go, but do like to get some coffee on the go and plenty of music to listen to and hide myself away in the garage for a few hours.

[DamoK4]

I did as you said and loosened the bolts before everything else. I don't think i could move the handlebars much left and right as i'm using a front stand and can't remove the front mud guard. I'm not looking forward to drilling the bolts out and helicoiling them. Was hoping to get it all stripped out and sprayed today but it's looking unlikely. The master cylinder is right in the way of some bolts as well.

My fork protrudes 5mm at the top is this normal for a pointy?

I do enjoy working on the bike usually i promise haha

[DamoK4]

Also does welding the damper holes make a big difference? I've been only been riding about 18 months and i wont be doing any track days

[Adam Ef]

Left handed drill bits for drilling out the stuck bolts. Start small and drill a pilot hole and work up. Spraying penetrant spray into the pilot hole can help too.


I have an Abba front lift I used so I could move the forks / bars sideways. Maybe you need to loosen a couple of fairing bolts to get it out of the way or at least give you a bit more room.


Not sure how far above the clamp the fork should be. Someone may have moved them up a bit to make it turn in quicker. Or that may be normal. I don't have a Haynes manual for an SV any more but maybe someone else has that info.


Better springs and oil makes the biggest difference. Welding the holes up is if you are adding emulators. If I did it again I'd just do the oil and springs and wouldn't bother with emulators as they take a lot of tweaking to get set up and are the smallest part of the improvement.

[gadget]

If you have a way of supporting the motor so the front wheel is just of the ground, that would be a huge help with the next procedures. So... motor supported, wheel off the ground, calipers off, front axle out, wheel out. Centre steering nut just undone, top fork caps just loosened, top fork clamps undone, undo nut that locates the clipons on the underside of the top clamp, then undo bottom fork clamps, then slide each/both fork leg out (assuming you can separate the legs from the mudguard in situ). If you don't have enough room to get the legs out before they are clear of the clamps, undo the fork caps n take the springs out first and then compress the legs ... so shortening their length for easier removal.
I have a curvy but the procedure should be pretty much the same tbh. Access to the triple trees isn't great and the fact you cant separate the legs from the mudguard isn't helping so you may have to enlist a mates help with fork removal.
Once they're removed though it should be a lot easier to get at the mudguard bolts.
Having said all this, if it was me... I would persevere with the mudguard bolts first as although a right royal pain in the ar#e it lestens the risk of completely mullering the mudguard.
Hope you get it sorted without any further agro.

[DamoK4]

I’ve had a good go at removing one of the bolts with a screw removal tool that Adam Ef mentioned, the left handed tap type. Maybe I bought a bad set or the screws are really seized in but i couldn’t get them to turn. I’ve gone through all the sizes and it just chews the holes bigger. It was the same when I removed my bar ends when I installed heated grips, that was so seized it broke out, luckily I had expanding bar ends waiiting to go in as opposed to screw in ones. My hope is to get some penetrant in there as suggested and pray they are easy to get off, some helpful suggestions there that i hadn’t considered.

Why loosen the Center steering bolt? Is that the bolt the petrol tank support sits in when raising it?

[Adam Ef]

I didn't loosen the centre bolt on mine.


The left handed drill bits I mentioned are just drill bits, not easy outs. I really don't like easy outs having had one snap when trying to remove a broken header bolt on my SV and battling with it for two weeks. Drilling out an easy out is harder than drilling out a bolt.

[gadget]

I only slightly loosened the centre steering nut purely because I was advised by a Suzuki mechanic to do so, I couldn't see a reason to do it tbh but he said that although it's all machined dead straight n parallel from the factory, they invariably end up slightly twisted with all the years of punishment the front end takes. when I came to take it all apart it was quite difficult to twist the forks out of the triple trees and was a bit concerned about scratching the forks.
So I took his advice and loosened the nut and they were a lot easier to slide out.
May not work for every bike but it did for me.
With regards to the seized bolts, I tend to use a drift and a good sized hammer before I even start to undo bolts etc, put the drift dead centre of the bolt and give it a good whack, this shocks the bolt loose from its rusted threads. Works a treat on the bar end screws that seem to be made of cheese.
As said before, these things may not work first time for everyone on every bike but they have served me well many times, may be worth a go.
Good luck with it all.

[DamoK4]

Cheers guys. I will spray some plusgas in there after work and give the bolts a good thump with a drift before trying again. One bolt I’ve ruined with the tapped style removal tool so ill drill the head off the bolt and see if some grips can get it moving, hopefully the spray and brute force can get the others moving. Was frustrated yesterday so thought I’d come back to it with more patience today. I don’t have a blow torch and don’t trust myself with it near fairings etc so I don’t fancy borrowing one if I can help it