Fork Damper Rod

[Dead Eye]

Exactly how important is it to remove the bolt securing the damper rod from the bottom of the front forks when changing the oil / seals?

I can't get the bugger out - a combination of my shoulder still being a bit busted and not having any real way to clamp the fork lowers to prevent them from spinning unless I grow several more appendages...

[unfazed]

An absolute necessity, as you cannot remove the seals unless you remove the bolt. The damper rod holds the fork tube in place and you need to use the fork tube as a slide hammer to pull the seal out. Difficult to do if you cannot hold the lower fork leg, I presume you do not have a vice. Many use the wooden handle of a brush pushed in to hold the damper rod while undoing the bolt. However you will need to have the lower leg held firmly in something like a vice to undo the bolt which is torqued to 30Nm.
 

[Dead Eye]

Right, fair enough

I don't have a vice, nor a workbench which is the issue - so far I have never needed them. May have to wait for my shoulder to heal up more and then use sort of cleverness with the yokes :P

[red98]

could you make a bar with two holes in to fix to the mudguard mounting....stand on it and undo the bolt 

[Dead Eye]

I think my plan might be to try and mount both forks upside down in the yokes (had one mounted yesterday) and use the axle to link them together (obviously can't push it through all the way on the one I'm trying to undo) so that it keeps the fork lowers from twisting. I can then use my impact driver or my breaker bar to apply a quick / sharp amount of torque to undo the bolt - at least this is the theory :P

[Paul]

An electric powered impact driver may do it.


Mains powered ones aren't that expensive, I think I paid about £50 for mine.

[His Dudeness]

Deadeye have you tried the handle of a brush method? It does work but you might need to shape the end of the handle and drift it a bit to get it to fit.

An electric powered impact driver may do it.


Mains powered ones aren't that expensive, I think I paid about £50 for mine.

Could you stick up a link for that please?

[Jamieg285]

This was the cheapest I found : http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/clarke-cew1000-electric-impact-wrench/brand/clarke


Only used it for undoing the sprocket nut so far, but it handled that with ease.

[Lawrence]

Liam, I'm heading past yours tomorrow so I can drop my impact wrench off if you still need it?  And the grinder if you need to chop an allen key.

[Dead Eye]

Bought and chopped an allen key already, just haven't been able to do the work with my dodgy shoulder :P

[Lawrence]

I can bring it round about 1.30 if that's ok with you, it should have enough welly to take it out - used it for my sprocket nut and it did it easily.

[Dead Eye]

That's perfect, thanks

[BluprintZ]

When i replaced the fork seals on the Thruxton, i whittled the end of a piece of dowling i had left over from a previous job until it fitted snugly into the tube , then i lightly tapped it into the tube and that enabled me to release the allen bolt at the bottom of the slider.

G ; )

[Dead Eye]

Finally managed to get the damned Damper Rods out

Went and bought a broom handle from Homebase (for all of £3.82 ) and tried to get the bolts out with not much luck. Last night however, I was talking to a friend and this came up and he mentioned about soaking the wood in water. Figured it was worth a shot so stuck the end of the handle in a glass of water and left it for a few hours and came back to it once I'd remembered...

Worked much better and two came out fairly easily with the 3rd requiring a bit more effort but it finally gave in the my persistence.

Now - any advice on removing the dust seals? They seem to be fairly stubborn as well - in fact, from how this entire process has gone I have a feeling that the forks have never ever been serviced in their 86k lifespan...

[Dead Eye]

Well I opted for the destroy the seals method...

I have new ones so ended up take a stanley blade to them to get them to move - plus I found my screwdriver that I've been after for 3 weeks, my other ones were either too larger or too small to do any good, but this one worked perfectly in anchoring the seals out.

So, yesterday and today has resulted in a complete strip down of all 4 forks, and then the partial reassembly of 2 with the best bits from the resultant sets. Just need to get the damper rods back in, fill with oil and put the internals back in and finally attach it back to the bike. Do a quick test then deal with the fairing / mirrors / indicators. I have new mirrors on their way from fleabay but need to figure out what I need in regards to indicators before I start buying.

Should be back on the road in the next week or so if work doesn't get in the way too much

[Punkstig]

Getting there buddy!