Struggling to rebuild forks after seal change

[FBi7]

Hi peeps,

A little advice needed. Just fitted new fork seals. I'm struggling to rebuild the forks. I've got a Haynes manual and am following it religiously.

It says to compress the inner tube into the outer tube to fill with oil. Trouble is when you attach the allen bolt at the bottom that attaches to the damper, the inner and outer tubes are locked in position. You can't then extend the tubes as the manual says. And there's no way I can compress the spring enough to get the top cap back on. There was almost no tension removing the top cap. Any ideas?

Cheers,

Stu

 

[FBi7]

D'oh! GSF650 SA-K8 Bandit. Normal right way up forks.


With the tube extended, there's nothing for the allen bolt to bolt on to, so the tubes have to be compressed to bolt on the the damper.

I was careful and tried to lay out everything in order as I took it apart, but that's obviously gone Pete Tong!

 

[FBi7]

Is there a damper rod that connects through the spring to the top cap? or does the spring sit on it's own and the top can isn't connected to anything?

If your internals look anything like this

Then the bolt at the bottom only attaches the the damper rod with the small (rebound) spring on it, the springs are then loose on top of that. The damper rods go inside the inner tubes, then are bolted to the bottom of the fork leg, the gap between the small rebound spring and the bottom is the fork travel.

Hi mate,

My internals are almost identical you your pic. The only thing is I don't recognise the two items that look like sockets above the two allen bolts on the bottom left of the pic.

Yes, seals,bushes etc fitted first. Then I tried to slide everything down the middle.

 

[FBi7]

Those are the cups which the damper rods (above them) sit in at the bottom of the fork leg, so that the damper rod doesn't move about. Yours may be stuck inside in the gunk and old oil.

Yes, mine a firmly located at the bottom on the inner tubes. Should I try and remove them, or are the fine where they are?

So you can extend and compress the innertube without any internals? Then you slide the lower parts in (the damper rod with the small spring), then do up the bolt at the bottom of the leg. The fork inner tube should still move, bit it'll be limited by the damper rod, so instead of extending to so that the bush is resting against the fork seal, it'll stop when it hits the top of the damper rod (or the spring).

If they're not moving when you've bolted in the damper rod, there's an issue there.

Yes, I can extend and compress the inner tube with no internals fitted. Slide in the damper rod and do up the allen bolts (the inner tube seems to need to be compressed to do this). It's at this point both tubes become locked in situ.

I'm wondering if it's to do with the damper seat/cups being stuck in the end of the inner tube, instead of being separate from the inner tubes. They look quite snug and look like they're meant to be there lol!

 

[FBi7]

Thanks for you help so far mate. Much appreciated.

Are those cups plastic? Mine are white plastic, but it does look as though there's still something inside the bottom of the inner tube. Are the inside of your cups white plastic?

Cheers again

 

[FBi7]

Thanks all,

I think I now know where I was going wrong, and the way forward. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get the white plastic cups out the bottom of the inner tubes without damaging them so I've ordered some replacements that should be here Friday.

Cheers again,

S..