Fork'ing Hell !!! Fork Rebuild Questions!

[BobA]

OK, so I've purchased and fallen in love with my tatty RD04.

Of course my intentions were to use it as a hack, intending not to spend too much on it.

SO WHY, I ask myself and everyone, am I now looking at everything that has a minor gremlin (and there are quite a few!) wanting to make it work perfectly or better than Mr Honda had intended?

Yesterday saw a quick once over to assess and prioritise jobs, and I've already taken care of a few, but my first major job, which I don't know if I can do with my limited workshop (i.e no bench or vice) is to rebuild the forks. I've got reasonable mechanical savvy, but just lack a good working space and resources at the moment.

So once again I'm asking for help and advice from you all! A few questions then...

Q1. How easy is a fork rebuild, and do I need any special tools?

Q2. Where do I get the parts, and should I go for Honda or pattern, plus any ideas on costs?

Q3. Are there any preferred (but not expensive) mods/upgrades to the forks that can be done at the same time? e.g different fork oil grades/amounts.

That's about it, unless anyone can think of anything else I may need to worry about.

Thanks Again

Bob

[africatijn]

Hi,

If you stick to the haynes manual, the rebuild can be done. At least, it worked for me, and I hadn't done it before either. You will need to jack up the bike, and preferably have a vice as well... The other trick to loosen the top bolt is to keep the fork in the bike yokes, and use them as a vice.

A lot of discussions have been around on changing the oil for another grade, do a search, and then decide for yourself. This is a personal thing, so just try and feel.

The other option is to use other springs, ie progressive springs. Should give some better handling. Oil is cheap to experiment with, springs are not. When I rebuild my forks, I used original Honda parts, don't know whether there a pattern parts. And first look what you really need. Come to think of it, I used pattern parts for the oil seals.

I needed a lot of parts, like the slider bushings, seals and dust seals, this was quite expensive. Exept the oil seals. If you only need those, it shouldn't be so expensive.

A tip, take your time. The whole fork assembly is quite complicated thing, but can be done bit by bit.

Goodluck,
T.

[robelst]

What Africatijn said. I am not the world's greatest mechanic (but I am the cheapest) and had no particular problems rebuilding the forks using Haynes for guidelines. There are no special tools needed. I decided to do it when I had the forks off to replace headstock bearings. I replaced sliders, dust- and oil seals and a whole series of washers. I bought my stuff from David Silver spares over the phone, they gave me good advice of the parts I would probably need (nothing's more frustrating than having a garage full of loose parts, and then find out some things are missing are not the right size). As with so many things, just do it, take your time.
Mods: Many people in bike-land seem allergic to standard settings and bits, over the years I have learned myself the expensive way that bike-manufacturers are usually not as insane and incompetent as many think
I just used grade 5 oil in standard quantity and did not bother with replacing the springs. Works very well for 99% of the time. If you want to use your AT for heavy terrain or as a super-motard you may need to do shop at places like Touratech. Good luck!

[BobA]

Thanks for the replies, but keep them coming, as they're boosting my confidence to do it myself.

I contacted David Silver spares by email about fork seal prices. They quoted £12.59 per fork plus VAT, which surprised the hell out of me as WEMOTO quoted £8 a pair.

I will obviously have to speak to each to find out exactly what's included, and what I'm likely to need.

Thanks everyone

Bob

[africatijn]

but keep them coming, as they're boosting my confidence to do it myself.

Go on Bob!! You can do it!! If I and Robelst can do it, so can you... (No offence Robelst, but I'm the cheapest mechanic as well, but takes ages to do something...)



T.

[xrv_jim]

Q1. How easy is a fork rebuild, and do I need any special tools?
Bob

Easy. Get a Haynes manual. You CAN do it!!!

Q2. Where do I get the parts, and should I go for Honda or pattern, plus any ideas on costs?
Bob

Pattern parts can be OK or can be cr*p while the Honda parts do have implied quality. While replacing seals is easy it's not something you want to be doing again and again...or are you some sort of masochist £25 + VAT seems like a lot for oil seals but I think I'd go for it.

Q3. Are there any preferred (but not expensive) mods/upgrades to the forks that can be done at the same time? e.g different fork oil grades/amounts.

I put 10w oil in mine and dropped the forks 10mm up through the yokes. I works for me but I guess any weight of new oil is going to make a big difference to the grey sludge that's probably kicking around in your fork legs now.


Finally, you will feel a warm glow after doing your forks. This will probably the satisfaction of having 'done it yourself' and cheating a paid mechanic from doing the job...or an adverse reaction to grey sludgy fork oil that you've covered yourself in

[robelst]

Seals: I got my seals as a set from David Silver, that is both the oil seals plus dust-caps. You'd better replace them together anyway. Possibly the Wemoto offer is oil-seals only?

[BobA]

I WILL NOT BE OUTDONE BY YOU FRUGAL FOLK!!

That's it, I AM going to do it myself, and I am now on a mission to do it cheaper than y'awl !!

I am not going to buy oil seals or oil, I will make my own from rubber bands and old chip oil.

Huh! I'll show you lot !!

[robelst]

I WILL NOT BE OUTDONE BY YOU FRUGAL FOLK!!

That's it, I AM going to do it myself, and I am now on a mission to do it cheaper than y'awl !!

I am not going to buy oil seals or oil, I will make my own from rubber bands and old chip oil.

Huh! I'll show you lot !!

Now that's the spirit
Earwax works very well as fork-oil too, actually, if your arms are long enough you could hold the front axle in your hands and bin your frontfork alltogether

[tedmagnum]

go for it man... Forks are not that complicated once you've done it once or twice. My only advice is to be careful when installing the new seals. you dont want to damage the inner lip or the seals will be goosed. If you havnt got a seal driver tool, you can use the old seals