Muki.Dorifuto.com Photography talk with random tangents into the unknown

Fork Change

Got around to changing the forks on dwiffy's bike last night.

It's actually a lot easier than I thought. We removed the forks a few days ago, but didn't have a 30mm wrench or socket to remove the top of the triple clamp. Once we got that off, it's a matter of gently tapping the top of the triple clamp off, unthreading the clamps below that and pulling out the rest of the triple clamp from below.

In dwiffy's accident, the front forks and the bottom of the triple clamp were bent and the rim was cracked, so all of them had to be replaced. The replacement wheel was actually balanced pretty well, but the alignment may need to be checked. We'll see.

Installation of the new triple clamp and forks was pretty simple and if we didn't spend so much time dicking around with the ignition, we probably could have done the whole replacement in about an hour. Doing things slowly and surely is the way, though. It's simply a matter of tapping the top clamp back on (that 30mm threaded nut will hold it in place once on), feeding the forks up and tightening it all up in about four places. It's made me realise that motorcycles are actually really simple.

The axle is a two person job, unless you want to balance it on your foot, and has a few spacers on either side to stop the wheel from wobbling about once it's on. We greased her up pretty good, but despite that, we had to gently tap the axle in for a snug fit. I was a little concerned that there was no cotter pin on one side of the axle, but given the axle is held in place through four separate bolts on the underside of the forks, it's not going to go anywhere any time soon.

The brake calipers were a bit of a pain in the ass as during transportation, we'd squeezed the brakes a few times when they were off the rotors. Perhaps I'm missing something, but from what I've read people have seemed to have always just pushed the pistons back into their seats with their hands. I can never seem to do this and always have to end up clamping the back of the pads or using a screwdriver for leverage. I found out that the pads also weren't installed correctly by the previous owner, so we fixed those at the same time. It's a little worrying after finding out one of your brake pads could jump out.

There are still a lot of little things that need to be fixed, but at least it's back on two wheels now and no longer on the jack. In the next session, we'll be trying to get her started and seeing what we need to tackle first in order to get her roadworthy again.