Front fork springs.

[robbo]

HM Racing in Edenbridge if that's in anyones neck of the woods.

[Ricky]

Hi Triggergee,  Unfortunately my settings were as set up by Luke at the rear to start with so can not remember what they were, then the preloaded was increased a few clicks plus a few more tweaks because it shock it's head bad on very fast acceleration.Luke' says to  leave front set as standard, but that also did not work for me. Luke was very helpful and gave me a lot of help ,but it was Mike who tweaked the front and I think he said there was to much rebound so made a few adjustments and a harder rear.Sorry I can not help more but it was a year ago .Luke is the man with suspension,but he has settings with the front  set as standard so needs a bit of trial and error.
My problem now is although the bike rides and handles well in most conditions and roads, the rear is firm and over distance can be a problem for my back,  the bike with the old shock set as standard was comfortable up to 200 miles,  give or take ,but now only half that if I am lucky. If I softened the rear the head shake comes back.

[happycallis]

Here is a pic of the new springs in the middle and the old ones on each end. Do they look ok?

[happycallis]

Also when refitting the dampener rods, is there a spefics way the go in or out it back on and do up the bolt on the bottom

[kebab19]

Also when refitting the dampener rods, is there a spefics way the go in or out it back on and do up the bolt on the bottom

Lifted from Ravenrider's post on freassembling forks:

Here is how it needs to be done and why. I have worked on probably 50 sets of Gen I forks. Many have had damage to the oil flow stopper due to improper installation. If you look closely at that stopper, there is a machined collar that faces down in the fork.
Many home DIY mechanics will simply drop that piece into the lower fork tube, then slide the upper steel tube down into the lower leg, and proceed with the fork assembly.

WRONG

I have seen these bent, crushed, tipped at all angles and even missing.

The "ONLY" way to assure this piece is oriented into the lower leg correctly is as follows.

Install the bushing or metal slide (manual doesn't cover this part very well) onto the inner steel tube. use assembly grease on the slider and lube the outside of the tube with fork oil or a shot of WD-40 will work.
Tip this tube UPSIDE DOWN.
The oil flow stopper (actually a re-stricter) is tapered with that machined collar oor lip on the other end. Place the tapered end into the end of the upside down steel tube with the small end facing up. It really won't fit in wrong. 

NOW, slide the aluminum lower leg over the steel leg. Holding the steel leg firmly in place, trapping the tapered oil stopper in place, turn the assembly to the up right orientation.
The shop manual shows the fork on it's side. What they don't tell you is that the special factory tool needs to be installed onto the cartridge to hold the assembly together while installing the bolt through the bottom of the fork. Most of us do not have this tool.
Just keep the assembly vertical for the balance of assembly.
This is where having aluminum vise jaws helps. With a helper or if you have a vice that can hold the fork well with out marring it all to heck, install the damper cartridge down into the vertical fork assembly. Without moving the inner steel tube in the aluminum lower, install the bolt up through the bottom of the aluminum fork leg and secure the Allen bolt into the damper rod. I have a 27mm socket welded onto a 20 inch length of 1/2 inch conduit with a hole drilled through the top of the conduit for a Phillips screw driver to slide through. This will slide over the damper cartridge to hold it as you tighten the bolt. If the damper rod tips to the side in the steel tube during this process.....STOP. Wiggle the damper cartridge a bit to get everything into proper alignment. If you can't get it to stay straight as you tighten the bolt, remove the steel tube from the aluminum lower and "START OVER".
If you don't ......the aluminum oil stopper will be damaged, the damper will bind and the forks will surely suffer extreme stiction and internal wear.
The wear caused by a damaged oil stopper can be seen in post #6 above. The scraped area on the rod is due to binding (miss-alignment) during installation.

Once the damper is in straight and the bolt torqued to specs. Use assembly grease on the rest of the components before installation. Install the upper fork guide, with guide washer. Use a driver to set it in place in the aluminum tube. Now the seal, snap ring and dust seal can be installed. Add the proper amount of oil, as measured from the top of the fork with the spring out and the tubes compressed. Install the spring, don't forget the thin rebound adjuster rod down the center, then the pre-load spacer and the fork cap.

[kebab19]

Happycallis: Your new springs look slightly shorter than standard, but not enough to make a huge difference - you could cancel it out via adjusting the preload on the fork caps.

I was out today and found my revised fork setup adequate / bearable. To summarise:

• Wearing the gear, about 13 stones.
  
• Preload mimimum / 5 rings showing.
  
• Compression - 18 clicks out from maximum.
  
• Rebound - 4 clicks out from maximium.
  
• Internal hollow metal spacers shortened by 10mm
  
• Oil height - reduced to 150mm from top (standard 140)
  
• 0.85kg K-Tech springs
  
• 10w Granville fork oil
  

With some reasonably heavy braking, the cable tie round one fork leg is indicating 122mm of travel, leaving some in reserve. Bumps are no longer quite as harsh through my hands, so I guess I can live with this setup for now.  Will probably still look into getting the forks revalved or swapped over when she's off the road in the depths of winter.

[kebab19]

Planning for future mods, I emailed Maxton to see what they could do to sort the forks & how much.  This is the spec sheet they sent me:

The forks on the Fazer 1000 are a very good pair of forks for general road
use but do have problems. The springs are too soft which can cause the
forks to bottom out under heavy breaking, this depends on your rider
weight and again how hard you ride the bike, the big problem is they do
not have enough rebound damping, which makes the forks spring back
very quickly when you let go of the brake or accelerate, this causes the
bike to run wide out of corners and makes the bike difficult to turn in to a
corner. The forks also have too much compression damping which makes
the bike kick off small bumps in the road. This problem can make the ride
uncomfortable. We modify the forks fitting harder springs to suit the type
of riding you do and also your rider weight, we also revalve the cartridges
increasing the rebound damping and reducing the compression
damping. We replace the existing hydraulic bump stops with spring bump
stops, which eliminates the severe patter that occurs when the forks
bottom out, this also gives the rider more; feel mid-corner when pushing
the front end. The fork conversion costs £405.00 plus worn parts: Seals £25
and Bushes £25. (ALL PRICES EXCLUSIVE OF V.A.T).
We have also found a problem with the internal damper cartridge
wearing out on Fazer 1000 forks. We have had forks that have only done
5000 miles with worn cartridge tubes. Unfortunately Yamaha will not sell
just the cartridge tube, you have to buy the complete damping assembly,
which is very expensive. We machine new cartridge tubes (only as part of
a Maxton conversion) manufactured from hydraulic steel tube, which will
never wear out. The replacement cartridge tubes cost £100.00 plus V.A.T
per pair. If the tubes are not replaced there will be never be any
damping in the worn area of the
cartridge tube.

Pretty much everything they mention above rings true to me and I know many people are happy with Maxton's service.  I just can't seriously splash almost £700 sorting these forks out - that's almost half the price of the bike  :eek I would doubt K-tech would be much cheaper (who knows, they might be even more expensive...) Might have to be plan B, C or D instead...

• B - Race tech damping internals & do it myself - about £200 to sort rebound, probably the same again to do the compression valving.
  
• C - R6 5SL forks - about £300 for forks, front mudguard, heavier fork springs & 5SL axle.
  
• D - R1 front-end - not that keen as I previously found it harder to insure, also £500+ to fully sort out. Having said that, I'd rather pay £700 for a 2008 R1 front-end than Maxton's 'full monty'...
  

Hmmm... :\

[lta01]

Hi all, I've been following this thread with a lot of interest. Last year I bought a well used 40k miles  tatty gen 1, and have steadily been overhauling everything. I rebuilt the forks with new stanchions due to severe pitting , and generally I was ok with them  ( used 5w oil ). All the adjusters are free and limit adjustments showed they are working.

More recently with available funds , I fitted Luke's R6 shock conversion as the stock rear shock was weeping . I'm a hefty 120kg , and despite endless adjusting and testing, I still find the rear spring a bit on the harsh/stiff side ( as posted above ). I've also found that with the R6 shock fitted, I get front end "patter" at local speeds ( upto say 50 mph ). above that it gets better. If I re-fit  the stock shock the front end patter goes but the wheezing rear  damping sound returns , so its knackered for sure. The R6 shock is very smooth though so I might ask Maxton about a softer spring.
Now a question for you experts please :
When I overhauled the forks, I measured the spring lengths as stock ( but could still be aftermarket I guess  ) and I noticed that the pre-load adjusters are light blue anodised and have only 3 adjustment rings....can anyone throw any light on this ? I don't have anything to compare to, but my impression is that they are stopping me getting to low pre-load settings.

BTW, here's a tip for you if you fit the R6 rear shock.... buy the R6 bottom mounting bolt as well. Due to the thicker bottom fork design on the R6 shock (alloy vs steel) , the stock Fazer bolt shoulder isn't long enough  and can cause the R6 shock bottom to twist slightly, which will side load the seal over time.

PS the bike is silver reg DK03...., last owned on the Wirral. If you recognise it, you might know the history.
cheers  Loz

[kebab19]

Might have to be plan B, C or D instead...

• B - Race tech damping internals & do it myself - about £200 to sort rebound, probably the same again to do the compression valving.
  

Hmmm... :\

So... I've plumped for option B.  I ordered the Race Tech valving set FMGV S2047C from the States, which covers both  Compression & Rebound  .  Ebay had a 15% discount code today, so after applying that it's costing $267.85 including Standard International shipping.  I will of course get walloped a second time at Customs again, but as long as it doesn't work out too much over £300 in total I'll be happy enough.