Fz1s Fork oil and steering grease repack.

[slimwilly]

So at 18,000 miles the Gen 2 could do with a fork oil change and steering bearings grease repack.


Start with lifting the front wheel, my home made bike lift made this easy

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A must at this stage is loosen top clamp bolts to make undoing the top caps easier,using a 32mm socket loosen caps 1 turn

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Undo the preload to max..

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Insert correct front wheel spindle tool

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Remove wheel,mudguard and brake calipers

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Then undo lower fork clamps

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Then slide out forks

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[slimwilly]

Undo the top cap

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You can tip the forks up now and drain into a container,at first the oil was clean then it soon came out dirty,after a while tip forks up and pump dampers up and down to get oil from cartridges,,a few times,,tip out oil,leave them to drain overnight if possible.

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Now you have to cmpress the springs to expose the locknut on the top cap, the are two holes predrilled in the spring plastic spacer, you have to locate two pegs in these and pull towards the other end of the forks.
I now have to make a tool for this, i looked at the problem and decided my best pressure tool here was my trolley jack,
so i made a clamp tool and a rearward locating peg and screwed it to the solid wooded post in the workshop.

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Then locate the fork and trolley jack

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This will then expose the locknut , you can then insert the previosly made clip tool to put under the lucknut to stop it disappearing into the forks

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[slimwilly]

Now it is a good idea to put a piece of rubber tube onto the threads of the dampers to pull them up and down later

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I put 500ml of 5w oil in both, this left an air gap with springs removed and dampers down of just under 4"
Put springs back in

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Wind down both clickers ontop of you caps and screw the caps back onto the dampers, lock the nuts and check you still have 26 clicks,adjust if not.

Now set the preload and damping to factory settings ,,or yours.


STEERING..

Now seemed a good time to check the steering bearings for grease.So same 32 mm socket to remove chrome top cap,
then lift off the lockring clip

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Loosen the top nuts on stem to drop stem far enough to get grease into both ends, you lift the stem up to do the top ones

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The bottom bearing race exposed

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then reassemble all of it,,dont tighten the clamps too tight until its all together to allow the forks  to align themselves, do a visual across legs to see if in line,,


Double check all bolts,pump brakes ,check they work, take for a small ride,braking hard, then recheck bearings and all bolts..

[noggythenog]

Good work slim, useful tutorial there,you've been a busy "bee"


Ill be interested to hear how you get on with the new and different grade oil once youve done a decent run on it.


Out of interest haveyo ever done the cabe tie guage on thefront forks, if so then how far from the bottom can you get the forks to travel?

[DekF]

That homemade spring compressor is very clever Billyboy.
I changed the fork oil & seals 3 times on my FZ1 & that simple system would have saved me about 2 hours each time.
I used 2 lengths of threaded rod with a 90* bend to fit the slots & a flat plate at the bottom. It was a slow & laborious method. Your method has really impressed me I wish I'd thought of it.

Btw, anyone experiencing harshness in the forks can try a lighter oil in the compression leg than the rebound leg. It's tried & tested & does work & was in my thou when I sold it.

Dek

[slimwilly]

Thanks for the praise, i do like to invent solutions to problems,,,part of my job,plumber,boiler engineer.


maybe i should patent the design,,spring compressor tools are expensive




Noggy , i found from reading that the original oil is between 2.5w and 5w,,Yamaha's own, different measuring system.


So you could even try a 2.5w if you can find it,,also with 500ml or just under then one bottle will do both forks.
Someone has said 5w in one and 10w in the other,heavier one in compression i guess.


I do like my forks soft,also i am quite a lightweight compared to other riders.if there is travel then set your bike up to use it.


I did 100 miles afterwards yesterday,those roads are very bumpy around Abergavenny,Black mountains,the forks felt too hard set at standard so i shall be out there later and soften the settings.

[noggythenog]

As far as i can tell, the springs control how much travel you get and the oil controls the rate at which you get that travel.


I like Deks idea of seperate oil in each side, so the lighter oil for compression allowing the forks to react quickly to pot holes yet with the heavy oil for the way back so that it doesnt po-go you to death.


Personally i might try the standard grade oil then for compression and go up a grade for rebound plus i want new linear springs, standard springs are apparently 8.5N so im gonna go with 9.0N on account i am permanently festively plump (i reckon the current springs must be close to 10N)