Front Fork Rebuild

[racerrad8]

I'm sorry but I don't share any of the apprehension you folks do about building forks. Having said this the modern forks of today I'm guessing would or might be more than tricky.

    Sorry about sounding a bit irritating my work satisfies my needs may not be up to Randy's precision and expertise but works for me so far.
Lez

Lez, as several have already mentioned, sometimes it just boils down to what a person knows and is comfortable attempting.

Not that the FJ forks are difficult internally, but they can easily be assembled incorrectly without even realizing it. As I mentioned earlier, the only set of FJ forks I have ever disassembled and were still assembled correctly were a set of factory built forks that had never been opened up on Texas Dave's 84 he brought to me a several years ago.

Heck, I can recall a couple of years ago when Frank bought Stormy. He purchased it from a motorcycle mechanic that prided himself on his quality of workmanship. That bike was very, very clean and the bonus was it was "professionally" maintained.

Frank played with tuning the stock dampening system and thought he had them dialed in pretty good but they never quite met expectation. Well, much to Frank's surprise, when we took those forks a part they were assembled incorrectly. The irony of this was the guy that built them was the owner of the bike and a highly regarded motorcycle mechanic.

The damper rods were not properly indexed. This resulted in the damper rod being tilted within the fork tube which causes a lot of wear in the aluminum slider and wipes out the bushing quickly. This also meant, even though Frank thought he was adjusting them equaling for the damping, he wasn't. I don't recall the settings when they came apart but they were not the same.

So, from the tapered spindle being installed upside down and wedged into the bottom of the slider, the damper rod not being indexed properly and tilting it in the bore, the adjusting rod not indexed into the center adjusting hole but actually in one of the oil transfer holes, to a set of damper rods that someone removed the center adjusting parts out of; there are just a ton of ways they can be assembled incorrectly.

When we build them, they are 100% correct. They can be installed back on the bike and off you go riding without any concern if you or anyone else did it "right".

Ryan, sorry I was not aware of Pat's post on progressive springs when I emailed earlier.

Randy - RPM

[chiz]

Yup points well taken and I hope no one thought I was trying to take meat off of your plate. That indexing bit; I was lucky enough to notice that when I took the FJ,s forks apart...easily missed though.
Lez

[ryanschoebel]

Randy, No issues at all. Good information, none of which i would have known haha. Lez, all's well. I don't think anyone thought anything of it, other than you were making your points. Thats what this forum is for right? Finding information and voicing opinions.  All's well, no hurt feelings all around the board 

[whyzee79]

The one thing you haven't mentioned is time.  Time is worth someone else working on my bikes now.  I want my free time to ride not wrench anymore.  I currently have 4 bikes in various pieces right now and if I want to ride this year I have to farm out some of the fixes so I can hopefully get some of the projects done.  Time is worth money to me.  It does kill me a little to take something in that I can easily do at home but in the end, getting back on the road/dirt is going to be the end result. 

[FJ_Hooligan]

Since we're talking about rebuilding a set of forks, I'll give my analogy.

Yes, time is money.  But, what is your riding time worth?

Let's say that tomorrow is going to be a glorious day for a motorcycle ride.  Unfortunately you notice a fork leaking badly.  Your shop/buddy/dealer is closed for the rest of the weekend.  Your ride is hosed.

You have to wait to deliver the forks/bike to whoever is going to do the work.  You are now stuck on his schedule.  Maybe he'll get to it right away and you'll get the parts back in only a few days.  But, maybe he's busy or has to order parts and it'll take a few weeks.  

If you take only the forks, you've invested time in removing them from the bike.  For a few more hours, you can finish a fork rebuild yourself.  But instead, you're wasting time waiting on someone else.  That's a huge waste of your time that you have no control over.

Now, my scenario.  Great day for riding tomorrow but there a fork leaking oil.  No problem!  I'll just spend a few hours in the garage with my $10 fork repair tools and I get to ride tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day,......

[Motofun]

Add to that the fact that you'll know it's done right....or at least know who to blame!