cleaning forks.

Dozuki

Dozuki

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I think that i successfuly laced up my front wheel and now I want to see if I can put the front togeather with just spare parts. Unfortunatly my spare forks look kind of old and need a good cleaning. Does anyone have any pointers on polishing forks. I have plenty of elbow grease on hand.

Paul
 
Remove the remaining clear coat first, a wire wheel works pretty quick. If you have some deep scrapes I start with a file then about 220 paper and work your way down to finer papers, buffing compound and polish.
 
Strip clearcoat as gggG says I use a paint stripper gel avaliable at Home Dpot and auaato parts stores everywhere. I used to snad, but just disocvered from another thread about thes greasless componds that turn a buffing wheel into a high speed sand paper from 80 grit up to 600. What a revelation for speed and ease. I'm buying the kit for $50.00 ASAP.

See here and at bottom of page.

http://www.caswellplating.com/buffs/buffing.htm
 
These have been stripped of the yellow clearcoat, cut on the lathe, blended by file, hand sanded to 600 and then polished. Lots of work, but the end results are amazing...

100_5567.jpg
 
wow those are great. I have a lathe how do you mount something like that. Looks like it would be well worth the work.
 
o.k I got my new old forks and started to scrub on them with some steel wool and a wire brush on my dremil then i hit it with some metal polish and those things are going to look pretty good. One problem I had was that i was going to take them apart and make sure the inards were in good shape. well i went to drain the fork oil and nothing came out:doh: and it looks like the cap bolts are cracked they are the kind that are a depression at the head of the fork. One last question/ comment. will the forks come apart if i can get the little allen bolt out of the other end of the fork and does anyone know what size it is. I can't reach it with the tools I have so I will have to go buy some more. :) YAY
 
8 mm Allen to turn the bolt in the lower leg. Depending on what year your fork is determines the special tool you will need to make to hold the damper from turning.
The early forks had a kinda oval shaped top end off the damper. A slightly flattened pipe works on there.
The later dampers have a 12 point socket shaped hole. A 17 mm bolt head or nut fits it fine. The bolt or nut gets turned with a 17 mm wrench.
I uses an all thread rod 3/8 inch diameter, threaded a 17 mm nut on there as straight as it could and brazed it on there. With the fork collapsed I put the rod down in the fork, got it engaged with the damper. Marked the all thread rod a bit above the fork tube. Pulled it out, bent the rod 90 degrees at the mark. Now with the bent end in my vise. The fork slid onto the rod. The rod will hold the damper and the 8 mm Allen wrench pulled the bolt.
Harbor Freight sells a long shank set of metric Allen wrenchs that you put on a 3/8 rachet. You can use a rachet or an impact wrench to loosen the bolt. I tried the impact wrench but the all thread I used had just enough flex to absorb the impact of my cheapy electric impact. So I used a rachet.
Look in the tech section. I think there is a thread in there about home made tools. In there it has several fork tools. Like mine or the flattened pipe for the early.
 
An air wrench on a long allen socket has always loosened the retaining bolt for me. I just chopped the leg off a long allen wrench to make one. Works a charm, especially if the spring is still in the leg!
 
Thanks for the tips xxsleo. I like the sound of the air wrench sounds like a good reason to get a compressor and some tools. Sounds like a good reason to me anyway I'm not so sure about SHMBO. I will just tell her. "Oh that old thing I've had it forever." LOL

thanks guys
 
If do a little shoping around you may find a good used compressor. Then when you tell SHMBO "Oh, that old thing, I've had it for forever" It will look the part.
A used one, you can get a much larger one than if you bought new too. You can't have too much air.
Watch around, repair places close down and sell off stuff pretty reasonable.
 
I almost threw tha f)(***ing forks out in the back yard. I can't get those stupid damn cap bolts off. I don't know if the cracks are in the bolts from being over tightened or because they are old. Either way I want to take a sledge hammer to them now.aaarrrrrggggg
 
Dozuki said:
I almost threw tha f)(***ing forks out in the back yard. I can't get those stupid damn cap bolts off. I don't know if the cracks are in the bolts from being over tightened or because they are old. Either way I want to take a sledge hammer to them now.aaarrrrrggggg
Click to expand...

Pipe wrench them, they are gonna be trash anyhow. They'll come loose.... Mine were the same way, I finally just trashed them to get them off and bought new ones. PS. when you reinstall them, just snug them up, the O-Ring does all the sealing for you.
 

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