Yes, you've got it right.
-
Enjoy XS650.com? Consider making a donation to help support the site.
XS650.com receives a small share of sales from some links on this page, but direct donations have a much greater impact on keeping this site going.
‘76 forks rebuild question
- Thread starter Woodchuck
- Start date
Yes, you've got it right.
I have it sorted out. I disassembled it in error. It’s all good now. Interesting there was only 125ml in each fork leg. Also there wasn’t a spacer under the top cap, just the flanged washer.
Both forks are cleaned out and have new seals now. One po really hacked the area where the seals sit. I smoothed the qouges with sandpaper and I’m those areas I put a very light coat of Three Bond to fill the scratches. It should seal fine. I removed the drain screw seals and threw them away thinking I had spares but none were to be found. I temporarily put small orings under the screws.
The po also put double copper washers on the damper retaining bolts. Wonder why he did that?
I’ll wait for a decent day and re-polish the bottom fork legs.
I think some of those parts stayed in my fork leg when I disassembled. Here’s a pic from the Clymer manual.
You can also look at cmsnl.com which has good exploded diagrams for various older bikes. Have you done the other side yet? If not use that for comparison.
You can also look at cmsnl.com which has good exploded diagrams for various older bikes. Have you done the other side yet? If not use that for comparison.
Attachments
Yes I did the other side and my guess for the first side was correct. I didn’t need to remove all those bits but did so by mistake.
What are people using for the gasket or seal under the 4mm drain screw? My copper and fibre gasket assortment don’t go that small. Right now I’m using an oring. Will that be ok?
Last edited:
Unless there's a groove or channel cut to accept the o-ring, it's highly unlikely it'll last any length of time. My local hardware store caries copper washers that small. Have you looked there?
Common gasket material can be used. To make a hole that small, clamp the paper between two pieces of wood and drill the correct size hole through it. Clamped nice and tight and it'll will give you a pretty clean hole. Then an Exacto knife or razor to cut it out to size.
I've just save the originals and re-use them, lol. They've always worked fine (so far). I do swap the Philips drain screw for a stainless Allen though .....
Also, I now "finish" off the fork legs better than the factory did. They left lots of casting flanges and didn't finish the backs of the legs that well. The later the fork, the worse this is it seems. These are the ones off my '83, pretty rough to begin with .....
A medium Roloc disc makes short work of this .....
One down and one to go, lol .....
Also, I now "finish" off the fork legs better than the factory did. They left lots of casting flanges and didn't finish the backs of the legs that well. The later the fork, the worse this is it seems. These are the ones off my '83, pretty rough to begin with .....
A medium Roloc disc makes short work of this .....
One down and one to go, lol .....
My friends copper washers were too large. I’ll leave the orings in for now - the screw heads sit in a recess in the fork tube so the orings are pretty well captured in the fork tube and under the screw head.
FYI - 1/2” of oil level in the 34mm tube = 6ml. if you ever wondered.
Last edited:
My friend milled this slot into the back end of a 1/2” socket. I’ll weld it onto another socket as @Woodchuck did. The adaptor shown was too fat to fit down the fork tube. I managed to use it without the adaptor and it worked great!
That was made from a 3/8" drive socket, right? The 3/8" drive seems to be just about the right size to fit on the damper rod top, with a little "slotting" done to it.
Yes a 3/8” drive, 1/2” socket. The nub on the end of the damper is .388”, close to 10mm. Very little material needed to be removed from the width of the 3/8 square drive. It just need to be elongated. Fits really well. I’ll post actual dimensions tomorrow.
I'll have to make me one of those, lol. I have a couple bad (cracked) 3/8" drive sockets I can use, and I recently acquired a couple older damper rods in a parts assortment.
Not sure what you plan on doing with the oil amount. The later forks work better with slightly more oil added. Setting the oil level 6" from the tops of the tubes (springs removed, forks compressed) does the trick. It ends up being about 1/2 to 3/4 of an ounce more oil. This really helps the newer forks and I don't see why it wouldn't help the older ones too. Check the oil level with the stock amount and if it's lower, give it a try. On the newer forks, every half oz. of oil raises the level about an inch.
Not sure what you plan on doing with the oil amount. The later forks work better with slightly more oil added. Setting the oil level 6" from the tops of the tubes (springs removed, forks compressed) does the trick. It ends up being about 1/2 to 3/4 of an ounce more oil. This really helps the newer forks and I don't see why it wouldn't help the older ones too. Check the oil level with the stock amount and if it's lower, give it a try. On the newer forks, every half oz. of oil raises the level about an inch.
Sockets prepped for welding tomorrow. Chrome removal was easy with the socket mounted on the drill and a run over the belt sander.
Wow, you're really putting some work into this, lol. I'd just butt the two sockets together and weld them. I've welded on chrome lots of times with no issues .....
Last edited:
