Forks rebuilt

[frakkopesto]

i am new to the forum. i like it...
i just ordered fork seals and progressive springs for my GS500E ('97).
i am going to do a major job on the forks.
can anybody help me with replacing the fork seals? i could not find anything posted online.

thank you,
-f

[Blueknyt]

http://www.gstwins.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16318

try there, the FAQ section is slowly growing.

[frakkopesto]

great! thank you it helps a lot!
-f

[Blueknyt]

let me know if my instructions get fuzzy anywhere, ill try to rephrase for you.

[average]

ill be knocking on your PM door pretty soon, too there Blueknyt

[Blueknyt]

hehehe, well, i think i found my extra fork seals,  ill be rebuilding a spare set of GS forks at work not this coming week end, more likely the following weekend, perhaps that would be a good time to snap some pix, this little camera seems to do ok. wouldnt hurt to repen the write up.

Got most my shed and carport straightend up, now must clear the top and sides of the work bench (in orderly fashion) then i can get setup to show an engine tear down.

Anyone have an Older laptop with USB port they wouldnt mind donating?  My little camera only holds about 20 pix at a time and would be easyer to dump right into laptop, vs walking in cleaning up hands, firing up pc figuring out which ones didnt come out right and going back out to retake them.  just an idea.

[frakkopesto]

i have finally done the forks. i have changed the springs (now i have some progressive springs in) and i have replaced seals and oil.

i used 1.9cm nylon spacers (the nilon tube came with the Progressive springs) and 350ml of 20w forks oil. it works great! both alone and with 2 persons on the bike.

i have one little remark to make for anyone who will try to do the same in the future:
at least one piece of information is missing or very difficult to find on the web.  to remove the fork seals you need to remove the cylinder inside the fork. to do this you need to remove the little hex screw at the bottom of the fork. you cannot do this without finding a way to prevent the cylinder from rotating inside the fork.

i am sure you can find different ways to do this, and most likely there is a special tool to do it.  i used a pole of very hard wood pressed inside the fork to prevent the cylinder from rotating, while unscrewing the hex screw. it worked ot pretty well form. but you need to be carefull to clean all the fork parts after using wood because you don't want small wood particles in the fork oil. i used clean cloths and an air compressor.

the shape of the top part of the cylinder has some octagonal shape (i think but not sure about the number of sides on the surface), which can be used to hold the cylinder in place. i used wood because didn't know the shape of such surface.

hope this helps.

[jordanearl]

do a little more searching and you will find the tool.  I say if its not in the faq's then it should be added.  I attempted to do them without the tool ans spent like 4 hours messing around with them till i read more into the site and found the tool.  Took less then 10 minutes to finish up with the tool.  Damn how many times did i just say tool???

[Kerry]

HERE is the thread with pics of (a couple versions of) the homemade disassembly tool.

[manofthefield]

I just started taking my forks apart and I have 2 questions:

1.  I hear so much about getting the dreaded allen bolt out, what does it do/how does it work? In other words, why does it have to come out?

2.  I found a piece of rubber under the cap, on top of the spacer tube maybe 5/8" thick with a hole in the middle.  Says taiwan mm on it.  I assume this is not a stock part, was it put in as a spacer?  And if I want to put it back in, how the hell do I get it in there and get the cap threaded back on?  I can put it back together w/o the rubber piece, but no way will it go with it in there.

[manofthefield]

Ok, I think I figured out my first question from the post Kerry linked to.  joefromsf's picture with his tool next to the fork seems to explain it.

I'm taking my forks to work tomorrow to use a impact wrench, hopefully I won't need to make any special tools.  Well, besides the allen wrench I cut up

[manofthefield]

Bump for my second question.  Has any one seen these in their forks?

[Kerry]

Has any one seen these in their forks?

Uhh ... negatory.  

[scratch]

Those are definitely not stock. Most likely someone put those in there to both increase preload to set sag and to absorb some of the sharper jolts that come from too much compression damping due to too small of holes in the damper rod. Do you want to keep them?

[manofthefield]

[knowlsey]

definitely not stock, they put all sorts in to stop the dive of the stock springs, i had 3/8 sockets in me spare ones