I started a fork seal project about seven or eight months ago and its still not finished.
Can anyone hook me up with directions on how to make that tool that goes down in the tubes to break the break the allen bolt loose?

I know its just a long bolt with a couple of nuts on the end, but I don't know what size or length.

I did a search in FAQ, but the link to the fork seal thread that had the picture of the tool was dead presumably because of the server change.

hey no problem

u need 2x 15/16" headed bolts
           1x   coupler
           1x    lot of jb weld glue [get the super strong stuff

One thing I learned is to get the bolts preferable 12" or longer. I remember the two 8" bolts I got didn't cut it. The rig wasn't long enough to protrude out of fort tube. But you mix up the jb weld dump it into the coupler then screw the two bolts in and let it sit for a few days.

Quote from: Jace009gs on January 20, 2006, 05:16:09 AM
hey no problem

u need 2x 15/16" headed bolts
           

You mean 5/16 headed bolts?
Or is it actually nearly a full 1 inch hex head at the bottom of that tube?

/little confused

I broke those free without a tool on 2 different GSs without problems.

You put the spring and spacer (& extra spacer if you have one) into the tube and put the cap on.
the spring then holds things in place while you break and loosen the alan bolt.

I have progressive springs which might make this work a bit better than stock springs,

Hi there,
Red Phil, I'm with you.
On every motorcyle I've owned, I've had to eventually replace fork seals, and on each bike, I left the springs and preload spacers inside the tubes, turned them upside down on the floor, pushed down to load the springs and used a hammer and impact driver to loosen the allen bolts holding it all together.
It works every time, and this is over the last 30 years.
Be sure to loosen the TOP fork caps before you loosen and pull the tubes from the triple clamps or you'll have a hard time loosening the top fork tube caps.
Good luck,
Todd

<i>Be sure to loosen the TOP fork caps before you loosen and pull the tubes from the triple clamps or you'll have a hard time loosening the top fork tube caps.</i>

Yup. I leared that one the hard way 1st time round.
2nd time I loosened the caps while everything was still on the bike.

NOPE that's right 15/16" ....it's a big MO-fo bolt wait till you pull it out you'll see FYI it's almost the same size as the fork tube inner diameter....

Like Red Phil and others ya if you get what I consider lucky the old elbow grese method works......but I could not on one occasion as the allen bolt had been prior striped [6 sided allen and I remember 2 corners being very round....I only had one chance with the impact wrench and I wanted to make darn sure it was going to work the 1st time.

Old thread i know, adding stuff so others dont go on wild goose chases like I did.

Just in case you have a newer model bike, building one of them tools wont help. Theres nothing for the bolts to grab, just a 15mm filleted hole. Broom handle with a long taper jammed into the hole should hold it.

What I did was compress my forks with a ratchet strap before taking the top cap off, and then hit the bottom bolts with an impact gun to break them loose. Put them back together the same way.