Forks seal and oil change

Started by clemmr211, June 03, 2003, 09:24:54 AM

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clemmr211

Ok.. so I helped a friend change his fork seals and oil because of a leak (make sure your friendly neighborhood garage mechanic knows where to put your inspection sticker).  Did everything the manual told us, put it all back together, and when I pushed on the triple to see how it felt, it went down, but didn't come back up.  Now I haven't made any adjustments, I wanted to get some feedback if this is normal or not, before I starting trying to fix it.  How non responsive should the forks be?  Or did we just mess something up?  (my bet is on this)
Ryan

tzracer

You compressed the forks and they stayed compressed?

Could be something internal to the forks, unfortunately this is probably the problem.

When the axle is pushed through the front wheel, the fork the axle slides through first can get pulled to the side on some bikes. A twist of the axle or a hit on the bottom of the forks with a rubber mallet can get everything to line up. This can cause binding, but it has to be pretty extreme to get the forks to bind.
Brian McLaughlin
http://www.redflagfund.org
Donate at http://www.donate.redflagfund.org
 
2 strokes smoke, 4 strokes choke

Litespeed

If they stayed down there has to be some significant binding somewhere which would be a bad thing.  Take them apart and make sure everything is in it's proper place, also make sure the seals are lubed before reassembling (though it doesn't seem that lack of lube would cause that drastic of a result).  Lastly make sure you put the springs back in cause that could cause it too  ;D.

clemmr211

The one thing I do know is that the springs are in...
Well 2 things, I know that the tubes are out of alignment, they were that way when we took them off and we just put them back to their existing spot (wanting to talk to the previous owner as to why they were out just in case he had a good reason for them to be).. also, BJ (the guy whos bike it is) just heard from Race Tech that would should've left 140mm from the top fluid, as we did 112mm like the manual said.  Tonight we're going to level up the tubes and drop the oil level.  Do these sound like possible solutions?

tzracer

The oil level will have no effect on your problem.

The fork tubes being at different heights could be causing your problem. If not, you will probably have to disassemble the forks.
Brian McLaughlin
http://www.redflagfund.org
Donate at http://www.donate.redflagfund.org
 
2 strokes smoke, 4 strokes choke