Now things get serious - Fork seal replacement

   The driver for this refurbishment is to replace the oil seal on the off-side front fork stanchion. That is the primary job. As I go along I will clean and refurbish anything else that needs it.

   Job one is all about the front of the bike. I have a bike lift which is handy as I can raise the bike to any working height. The bike was raised and a jack put under the front of the engine to support it once the front wheel is removed. It returned out the jack has some kind of oil leak so it very slowly decended under the weight of the bike.It dropped a couple of inches over night. Luckily not so much as to make the bike pitch forward and fall off the ramp. Finding this heart stopper made in me use a racket strap through the rear wheel and looped around the ramp base. Once tightened up the back wheel was strapped down. And it stayed that way.

Preparation

   With the wheel up in should be straight forward the release the brake calipers, remove the wheel spindle and remove the wheel. Straight forward it was not. I had taken the precaution of covering all the bolts in penetrating oil, whilst being careful no to get oil on the brake pads. The bike has linked brakes and was determined not the drop hydralic fluid out of the brake system which would require me to refill and bleed the system. I understand it is a nightmare job. I took a few pictures to see how the linkage was set up. I carefull removed all the bolts until the calipers were able to be swung away from the brake disc. In order the remove the forks the front mud guard needed to be removed. More penetrating oil on the grimy nuts that were on the underside of the mud guard and therefore exposed to years of road dirt. there were more brake related brackets tangled up with the mud guard mounting. Following a struggle and more oil the seized nuts and bolt began to give and were finally removed which released the mud guard. By the time I got to this stage it was clear, give the up grades I had in mind, That would need to remove all the front fairing panels and some of the up dash panels.


   The crimp bolts on the upper and lower yolks were surprisingly easy to access. On each side there four bolts; two on the upper yolk and two on the lower yolk. There is a 20mm hexagon key in the top of each stanchion that secures and provides compression for the suspension. These nuts are usually difficult to undo as they are rarely undone, are under pressure and when off the bike there is no purchase to counter the turning motion needed to unscrew the nut. I decided the loosen the 20mm hex bolts whilst they were in the bike. Guess what? They It undid very easily but being careful not the unscrew it completely. Each fork was slid down through the yolk, the fork cap removed and the fork oil drained out. Both sets of oil were filthy and of course there was less oil in one fork than the other. Also remember to catch the spacer, washer and spring which will fall out when you upturn the stanchion to drain the oil.

Removal 
   Then began the trial of removing the oil seals. Each legs was tackled in turn. There is an allen key at the bottom of the legs which secures the bottom of the internal suspension mechanism. It is in the ticklish spot. A long reach allen keys is required and potential to damage the head of the key is high. If damaged the bolt is never coming out. As luck would have it, although very tight the bolt came free. The dust cover is prized from it position revealing a circlip. The clip has to be removed to allow the seals to be removed. There are two on each side. Removal of the seal is done by sliding the lower suspension leg (the slider) down with a sharp movement until the internal suspension bush hits the underside the of the seal and slowly drifts the seals out of position. Note the anyone else tackling this job, do not allow the suspension bush to come out of the slider. It took me ages to get back in. It is quite soft so damages easily and is sprung to grip the inside the slider. With this knowledge the second legs was quicker to service. The old seals are taken off the stanchion (upper section of the suspension).

Reassembly
The stanchion then slid carefully into the slider, the spring is refitted followed by the washer and the spacer. The new seals come with a grease which is used to ease the passage of the new seal down the stanchion the preserve the sealing edges. The seals need to carefully tapped into place and the circlip refitted. The new oil is measured out and poured into the stantion. The suspension needs to gently worked up and down several time to expel any air trapped in the galleries. With oil topped up as necessary. The 20mm hex is is screwed back in to the top of the stanchion. The thread is fine and the suspension spring provides a lot of resistance so one has to be careful not to cross thread the Hex bolt. I tightened the Hex bolt as best I could and noted that it need fully tighening when it was back in the bike.

The same procedure was carried out on the second legs. It took about four hours to complete the work described. The sliders are going to be painted so were set aside and the next job got ready for another day.