Forks modification advice

[Triggergee]

It put up a good fight but I'm relieved to say I won! The spring pressure wasn't enough even with me putting all my weight on it. To go the broom handle route as I said I had to cut the bent part of the stanchion off which I would've had to do anyway to get the spring and hopefully damper rod out.
Broom handle didn't work to bite into the damper so I tried a cricket post which fits up into the damping rod top and gripped good but then the whole thing span as one...


In the end I put an 8mm Allen key through the top brake calliper mounting hole and used a ratchet strap round that and the cricket post to exhert more force than I could using my body and used as you say a battery impact driver and after maybe a minute of that it finally gave in!


Thanks for the petrol tip I'll make sure to give it all a good wash out. Right now one of the damping rods which had a slight bit of corrosion I'm guessing because the stanchion was so bent it split and was already drained of oil  is having a little soak with some acf 50 and tomorrow I'll give it a gentle rub with some wire wool. For today though I've got a bottle of 10% abv wheat wine from the brewery at the end of my road to celebrate my victory with 

[tommyardin]

Wire wool will do it no harm, the emulator and then the spring plus the spacer and spacer top washer/disk sit on top of it.
Don't forget to put the small rebound spring on the damper rods  before fitting the rods back in the lower legs/sliders.
Make sure your fork seals are good and not weeping if they are OK then the sliders do not need to be removed from the stanchion.
Sounds like your cracking on with it, well done. 
   

[Triggergee]

I'm now nearly at the point of making a start and am just waiting for new dust seals and oil to arrive. One thing which I've been wondering though is if there is a particular way of getting the emulators seated properly on the damper rods once the forks are full of oil? perhaps it's just a case of chucking them down the tube and agitating them with the spring? I'm also assuming the oil goes in before the emulators?

[tommyardin]

I'm now nearly at the point of making a start and am just waiting for new dust seals and oil to arrive. One thing which I've been wondering though is if there is a particular way of getting the emulators seated properly on the damper rods once the forks are full of oil? perhaps it's just a case of chucking them down the tube and agitating them with the spring? I'm also assuming the oil goes in before the emulators?

If you decided on the YSS emulators (Part Number 310) they are a perfect fit to the top of the FZS600 Damper Rods.
On my 2002-2003 FZS600 Foxeye with the 190 mm Damper Rods, rather than using the air gap method I went the volume of oil method that is 465cc total oil per leg. There is one other thing to take into consideration, that is the amount of oil that is displaced but the emulator being added to the stack. (Stack being Damper rod, emulator, spring, tube spacer and top disk spacer)
The exact amount of oil displaced by the YSS emulator has slipped my mind and I can not find it written down anywhere.
But I do recall how I worked it out.
I half filled a clear, clean drinking glass with hotish water, not boiling and marked the level of the water with a marker pen, be accurate, pop one emulator into the hottish water and with a syringe draw water from the glass and get the level exactly back to where you marked it, the syringe they has graduations marked along its length, you now now exactly how much fluid is displaced by the emulator by reading the amount of water in the syringe. Subtract that from the 465cc that goes in the each leg.
(1998 & 1999 models have 475ml in each leg)

Make sure that each legs is completely devoid of any oil (clean and dry) if using 465cc minus emulator displacement method, or you will not end up with the correct total amount in the leg right.
The reason for using hotish water when finding the emulator displacement is that a quick shake once its out of the water and the warmth of the emulator itself will dry it in a minute or so.


Below is the instruction from YSS.
I just found the amount displaced by the emulator I had it written in the workshop manual not in a Word Doc on the computer, it is 7.5cc per emulator.

1cc of fluid is exactly the same as 1ml of fluid, they are the same amount.

PS: YSS call the 'Damper Rod' the 'Piston Rod' same thing

[hopefiendboy]

Nice work. I'll be doing this once I have the new bike and have sold a few things to pay for the mods :-)

[Triggergee]

Really appreciate your help on this tommyardin! Going fine so far, got the two existing holes drilled out to 8mm but needed to go out to buy a new 10mm bit. The emulators are a pretty good fit on the rods but do have a little wiggle room, maybe a mil or two but I guess the springs hold them down enough to make a good seal. I've set them to 2.5 turns from initial spring contact. So just drop them down the tubes and they should slot on nicely... as soon as the new dust seals come I'll drive the bike into my kitchen (don't have a garage) and swap everything over    then ill start wondering how to mod the rear shock

[tommyardin]

Cool, sounds like you on top of it, well done. 

[Triggergee]

Finally drilled out the damper rods today, possibly not as cleanly as I would've liked but I don't think that matters as long as the measurements are right which they are and any swarf or debris is cleaned away which it is. Considering changing the oil seals as I bought them with the dust seals so I might wait until I've put together a seal driving tool before fitting the mod.

[Triggergee]

Massive thank you to kebab19 for your original post and tommyardin for all your help. I finished putting it all together yesterday with new oil seals, dust seals, modded damper rods, 15w oil, linear springs and the cartridge emulators and took it for a 40-50 mile spin today and what a difference! I don't feel like I'm bobbing up and down all the time or nose diving under braking, feels responsive and stable but still has nice damping for bumps and pot holes. I does seem to have highlighted the poor rear shock though as the front feels solid but the back wants to bounce me off although that might be as I've got the preload set to 6 not the standard 4 as I've often got a pillion.
Next ride I'll drop the preload on the shock to 4 and possibly the preload on the forks just a touch and see if it's more balanced.


Great mod and I'd highly recommend this to anyone confident enough to give it a go.