XT forks. Grr

So one of the fork seals was leaking and I thought I'd fix that plus fit
gaitors.

Both forks (on a 30 month old bike) were very hard to pull apart (well
one not done yet). The root cause (apart from needing to have a tool to
hold the damper rod) was the amount of corrosion around the fastners was
unbelievable. Every single fastner's gone in dry without any use of
grease or similar in exposed areas. (e.g. around the bolt head in the
bottom of the forks to keep the salt-water out.)

Grr.

Guess I'm not out on the bike tomorrow.

 

I've never needed a tool to hold the damper rod, as a rattle gun does
the trick. If you do manage to get it loose yet it seizes up again
while hitting it with the impact wrench, spinning the damper rod, just
jam a broomstick down the tube to immobilize the damper rod.

 

Me neither; and I had tried a broomstick.

I think the problem was that the corrosion around the hole in the bottom
of the forks was jamming the bolt head so the rattle gun couldn't do its
stuff and break the loctite.

Still got a tool for damper rods from about 16mm internal diameter to
20-something now. And those forks won't be corroding around the bolt
hole again in a hurry. Well one of them won't at the moment, the other
later today...

 

And done.

The tool (which I'd like to claim responsibility for, but can't- a
neighbour suggested the design and built it.)

Take the nearest size shield anchor fixing[1] that would fit the ID of
the fork damper.

Pull apart and weld the three expanding 'fingers' to a suitable length
of steel pipe. Keep fingers in position by placing a suitable drill bit
in the middle and use this to centre in the pipe whilst welding.

Run a piece of studding through the centre of the pipe, place a nut and
washer at the 'pipe end'. Fit the expanding cone piece on the other
end, inside the 'fingers'.

Tightening the nut pulled the cone into the fingers, expanding them
which in turn locked against the ID of the fork damper.

Wish I could make stuff like that in little time.

Anyway, forks mostly back together with grease covering exposed bits
that had got fucked. Just got to fit gaitors, put them back on the bike
and replace all (non critical) fastners with stainless, paint over
chipped paint and then spray with ACF-50 before putting the wheel and
brakes on.

Winter bike trips... always end up in a blind funk in February trying to
sort out all of the little jobs.


[1] http://www.tooled-up.com/SubCategory.asp?CID=22&SCID=779

 

On Sun, 16 Jan 2011 10:19:12 +0000, wrote:

snip>

I'll finish upsetting myself watching the cricket, grab some breakfast
then get back to working on the Tenere.

 

Hooray for complete engine changes!