I think I'm in trouble - replacing fork seals turned ugly

[chrisbags]

Hi Wingnuts,

I've talked about max here a bunch, you guys have saved my bacon more than once, I'm hoping you wizards of wings can help me on one that has me a little discouraged and if I'm honest, a little scared I might have made a big mistake trying this myself. I've read all of the stuff I can find out here, on goldwingdocs.com, in the shop manuals, and I've even considered asking a witch doctor.

Last season I noticed my right fork tube seeping oil. I rode it a few more times and put her away for the winter. She's a good looking 81 interstate that i've done just about everything but the front end on. I did my homework, bought my supplies, even got a nice new set of progressive springs sitting on the bench ready to slide into the tubes. I followed the tutorials on removing the front wheel, the front brake calipers & brackets, removed the fender, all was fine.

I went to drain the forks by removing the bolts from the bottom. They were frozen, so I hit them with seafoam penetrating spray and let them sit. I did the tapping trick, then tried them with the allen key. Frozen. I put the impact wrench on them and they freed right up, but they're not coming out of their threads. What I mean is, they are turning freely, but not backing out of their holes, which to me sounds like either I broke both the heads off the bolts or the sleeves are still frozen to the bolts but they are no longer properly attached to the insides of the tube drain sleeves - which can't be good. Is there any way to fix this?

My other issue is that on both tubes I got the dust covers off, the circlips out, but I tried to separate the lowers from the uppers both on the bike, and after pulling the tubes out of the triple tree - I wrapped them in a towel and put them in the bench vise (I should have mentioned I had already removed the air fittings/valvestems and the caps & springs from the tubes) and then tried again to separate the tubes, and no dice. The forkseals are still there and they're acting like they are stuck. Believe me, I applied a copious amount of downforce in my attempts to separate them, I decided to give it a rest to come in here and send out an S.O.S..

So I have the oil out of the tubes, the tubes out of the trees, the caps out, the springs out, but I'm stuck with a pair of tubes that have free-rotating drain bolts in the bottom and fork seals that I can't get out to separate the tubes - is there anything I can do besides go to ebay and look for new fork tubes? I'd really rather not do that but if I have to I have to, Max has no front end at the moment. Can I drill a hole in the fork seals and force them out or something?

If I sound like a total moron please excuse me, I am beyond frustrated and a little scared I messed up my bike.

Thanks in advance as always!
Chris

 

[rmc10]

if your talking about allen at bottom of fork
, try putting spring back in tube putting pressure on spring and then try to take allen out.

 

[Ansimp]

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=9463#p143370
Kerryb made up a device to stop the ends from spinning while undoing the bolt :yes:

 

[Steve83]

You're safe...there's a piston in the bottom of the fork that that is held in place by the hex bolt, and the fork will not separate until it's free. As stated above, there are several methods of holding it to remove the bolt.

The seal can be a real pain to pull out. I've had them come out easily, and I've had to use the fork tube like a slide hammer to drive them out. They will come out, sometimes they put up a fight. I locked the tube in the triple tree and yanked the crap out of it 'till they finally gave. I had to replace the backing ring on one side, because it bent backwards from the impacts. That's the worst I've ever seen...

 

[brianinpa]

As rmc10 stated, the first step (and easiest) is to make sure the spring is still in and tight. That spring tension is usually enough to keep that "pipe seat" from spinning. For me, the hardest part is keeping the fork tube from spinning and to solve that, I just keep it locked in the triple tree.

 

[Denver]

Yes it can be a problem till the springs are there to hold things tight, & impact gun to break lose, as they have thread locker on em. In future break lose before disassembly, as you will use thread locker when you reassemble, & prior to oil in tubes.

 

[chrisbags]

Thanks guys! As always I am amazed by the feats of engineering on this site and in garages all over the land. There is a broomstick in my future!! I'll let y'all know how this turns out.

 

[Ansimp]

chrisbags » Tue Mar 17, 2015 12:00 am[/url]":2jo5qw1n]
Thanks guys! As always I am amazed by the feats of engineering on this site and in garages all over the land. There is a broomstick in my future!! I'll let y'all know how this turns out.

:good:

 

[shierh]

I have 2 spare forks. Will sell you the lower and guts for one of them.

 

[kerryb]

An easy way to hold the fork tubes is to use a holesaw to cut a hole in a 2x4 that is the same size as the fork tube. for my '83 interstate that was an 1 1/2" diameter holesaw used in a drill press. cut the resulting block in half to make 1/2 round clamping blocks to put in a BIG shop vise. When that won't hold the tube from spinning, wrap a new rubber latex or nitrile glove around the tube for extra friction. I know its a lot of steps, but it hasn't failed me yet. Let me know if you need pics.

 

[chrisbags]

Hey guys, So putting the spring back in worked like a charm on the first tube, but on the second one it didn't do anything, so I copied the broomstick device but I can't get it to grip strongly enough to let the bolt break free, it's still in there spinning away. Any other ideas on how to keep that piston from rotating? I have the first one totally disassembled thanks to you all but I am back to being stuck again. It's a pisser I'll tell you that. I was going to try to drill the little b@stard out but even then the damn thing spins on me. Any ideas?

 

[brianinpa]

So the spring is in and the top cap is tight and it still spins even when trying to drill out the bolt head? I once had a fork that did that and the only way I got it was to drill the bolt head off. I jammed something between the bolt head and the fork just to keep everything from spinning while drilling it. It took a while, but I stuck with it. One thing I should mention: I did this on a fork tube that was on a parts bike so it really didn't matter to me what the eventual outcome was.

 

[chrisbags]

Yes Brian it's strange, I am wondering if it would make any difference if I flipped the tube upside down and pushed down the lower section to compress the spring and get greater tension. This is a frustrating problem but thank you for trying to help!

 

[kerryb]

I didn't mention it, but the broomstick device didn't provide enough stopping force without a friction material on top of it. The first time I used this was with a couple disposable gloves on top. That didn't work the other day using it again, so I found some rubber sheeting about 1/16" thick (I keep this kind of stuff around) which was tough enough not to be cut by the inner cone of the fork tube and with downforce, provided enough grip to keep the tube from spinning. The reason to use an impact driver is the hammer blows provide the downforce and the impact driver provides the turning force at the same time.

If you have to resort to drilling it out, start with a 1/8" drill bit in a slow turning cordless drill and plenty of oil. Each successive drill bit should be only a little bigger than the last one. I think I used 5 or 6 bits to keep the torque levels low enough for the broomstick/rubber to stop the rotation inside. The tricky part is pushing down, drilling, and keeping it straight all at the same time. I only broke one bit!

here's the vise blocks to hold a tube without scratching it...

 

[chrisbags]

Thanks for an awesome follow up kerryb! Will give it another go in the AM. and thanks guys for all the advice

 

[Denver]

Don't give up & drill just yet. :read: Do you have springs & caps on? :headscratch: If you do open up & put NEW SPRINGS & caps in forks to hold, I use a 1/2" impact driver then to remove. Haven't seen one don't come out this way, :good: if head is stripped out so hex 6 mm don't fit any more, use the right size E Z Out to grab, & out they come. :yes: Rare for me to use anything but 6 mm allan with impact gun. opcorn: Good luck :wave:

 

[Ansimp]

Make sure that you use an impact 6mm hex drive in your impact gun as you may create more problems without one. +1 on the impact/rattle gun :good:

 

[CRAFTMAN6001]

Tricks of the trade the unwritten stuff Gotta love it..I'm going to learn so much today. I think I know what bike I'm going to do up now..

 

[chrisbags]

Well boys, I made the supreme sacrifice and ordered an impact gun. The unanimous endorsement made it an easy decision to make...I was going to just take the tube to the local shop and have them get it out but I've been against the wall before working on max and the satisfaction of getting help from y'all and getting it done myself made going to the shop feel like giving up. Hell, I am sure I can find lots of stuff to terrorize with a new rattle gun. Should be here Friday, I will update you once I get to give it a shot.

 

[dan filipi]

To me it's an easy choice, pay someone to do it for me or buy another tool.
Tool usually wins.