Fork Seal Nightmare

[Vansnxtweek]

Hey guys,
Got to the reassembly of my forks and ran into some problems. I disassembled them to install Hugh's lowering kit as well as get the lowers powder coated. I'm at the point of installing the lowering spacers and putting the forks together. First of all, I got the one inch lowering spacers and they don't sit flush on the damper rod when lining up the set screw with the hole on the rod. Anyone have experience with this?

In addition, I tried to install my fork seals and was completely unsuccessful. I think I put one in upside down so I pulled it back out, of course Its trash. Then went to put the other in and while doing it with the best size socket I thought, it started messing up the rubber around the outermost lip. Is a fork seal driver really necessary?

Any tips are greatly appreciated.

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[gggGary]

Take a seal with you to the plumbing aisle of the local big box store IIRC a heavy pattern 1 1/2" pvc male adapter makes a perfect driver. put in on a chunk of pvc pipe. Put the tube in the leg that keeps the pipe centered I think you can then use it like a slide hammer or tap on the end of the pipe with your hammer. I often use a bit of fine sand paper and lightly sand where the seal fits.

 

[grepper]

I've you've upgraded the head bearings, the old races fit in there perfectly.

 

[lowerc]

the set screw shouldn't line up with the hole in the rod. the through holes need to line up. setscrew will land wherever.

 

[weekendrider]

The powder coater didn't happen to powder the inside of flange/bore did they?

 

[5twins]

There were two fork sizes used on these bikes, 34mm and 35mm. Sure you got the proper seals for the forks you have? And also, all that was mentioned above.

 

[Vansnxtweek]

Hey guys, thank you for all the help. As far as through holes on the lowering spacers, there are none. Only the threaded holes for the set screws. Maybe this is a specific thing to the 1" spacers? I'm thinking maybe the spacer should sit flush and the hole will just be exposed. Now I'll have to hopefully be able remove those set screws after red lock tighting them.

As for the pvc, that sounds like a great idea! I'll try that. I haven't done my steering head bearings yet so I don't have those old races.

5twins, I believe I have the 35mm forks so if anything, I'd think the improper seals would fall in. I'm going to double check though so thank you for that heads up.

And finally, thankfully they did tape up the forks well so I have no powder coat screwing me up. They did lose my drain screws though

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[Liftedzuki]

the threaded holes are bigger than the dampener rod hole. as long as you can line up the hole so you dont block the dampener rod hole.

Set screw just goes against the rod with loctite, not in a hole.

 

[payaso13]

Sorry to hijack...but on hughs spacers....I did the Minton mods and drilled all the way thru on the top (smallest hole on damper)..was wanting to get 2in.lower kit but is the set screw on exact opposite side of original hole for oil? Wonder if it would still work or source some original undrilled dampers