top cap on fork

Are these the caps that need to be pushed down to get the clip out.
Looks like a whole bunch of fun coming my way. If I tap them down a little will they come back out If I compress the fork, or do you think they will just get stuck?

 

That's crazy rusty, I would look up best ways to dissolve rust and let that soak for like a week at least before trying to bust through it. I think there's an acetone:ATF mix that works good but I do t remember the ratio

 

Will it hurt anything to put pblaster in the top of it and let it soak in?

 

Nope, since I assume you will be changing the fork oil after, all the pb blaster that leaks through will get flushed out.

Not sure pb blaster will be strong enough though (have never used it myself)

One that often comes up and if I remember correctly its what "bigfitz" said he used, kroil to get his top caps loose

 

PB Blaster will work very well.
KROIL will work better.
ATF and Acetone (or odorless mineral spirits) mixed 1:1 will 2ork as well as KROIL and is less expensive.

Let it soak for a few days.

scrape the rust out with an old screwdriver

Push down and see if you can get the clips out.

 

There is an o-ring on the cap. Nothing is going to leak past it.

 

Loosin the top clamp bolt it can squeeze the tube enough to keep the cap from moving. But you will need to soak the cap.

 

Caps are soaking. Will let it sit for a few and see how it goes. Have to order some parts from xj4ever so I can rebuild these

 

Hey storm,

I'm in the same place as you with my forks. Mine weren't quite as rusty. I'd be interested to hear the progress you make with them.

So far I've tried PB blaster soaking for over a week, and applying heat with a propane torch. I got one of the circlips out, but the plug is still in there stuck. The other one I can't get the plug down past the circlip no matter how hard I beat on it.

 

The first thing I did was to clean it up as much as possible with a wire brush on my dremel. Tapped it a few times and I could see a Crack running around the cap. Cleaned it up with wire brush again and now it's soaking in pb blaster. We will see how this goes.

 

The plastic caps were missing off the top of the forks, so I imagine it sat with water on top of it for a while.

 

Yup, may have to heat cycle it for awhile, too. But long and short of it is, you MUST get those to push down far enough to remove the circlip. The kroil, etc.....will kreep past the o-ring, you just gotta keep working it.

Use an old socket that just fits in there, and you bump that with a hammer to help. Leave the forks anchored at the bottom though so you aren't fighting against a tube that keeps trying to slide away from you......
dave F

 

I have the one cap down to where the clip will almost come out. I don't want to push it down to far in fear of it never coming out. Tapping and cleaning and trying to work the cap side to side with a small screw driver to try and get the oil worked past.
I will try a little heat this coming weekend.

 

Once that clip is out the spring inside will push the cap out.... Quite forcefully too..... Don't put your eyes in the way!!!! You gotta get it down a hair farther yet--- it won't go much farther anyway. It only goes down far enough to clear the ring, so you're just about there ...

 

What if I get the clip out and it won't come out? Put the bars back on and bounce the front end?

 

i kind of doubt there's a clip left in there

yea, right

 

The clips are still there. I can see both of them and the one on the left I can pull the edge out. I will get some pictures of where it's at

 

Eeeeesh.... You bounce that thing with no clip in there--- better have your helmet on.... BACKWARDS, so the projectile can't go through the face shield!!!!

 

I figure the bars would block the cap/spring

 

i guess Stormin is about to find out

 

Uh.... you DO know how a BB gun works, right? Not the CO2 kind....the kind that you cock the lever. If you aren't familiar with them, they are spring-loaded. The spring,when released, will very basically hit the BB or the pellet and make it fly out of the barrel. You're about to make a pretty large-caliber BB gun with a muther-sized pellet.......

 

Not that it matters (it really dosen't): There is a piston inside the majority manual BB guns that works just like any other manual air pump (excepting the Red Ryder, that does use a spring).

You're right that he shouldn't be looking straight at the fork cap though. There is enough spring pressure to make it fly out enough to damage an eye. Particularly if any of the remaining rust breaks off.

 

That's exactly why I said "very basically"

 

So if it sticks. add some heat and more pblaster? And hope it doesn't fly out when I'm not home.

 

If the caps not under pressure from the fork being compressed than it will only shoot out a few feet, at least that's what mine did, as I said though, my fork wasn't compressed at all when I let mine go. You could probably tie a grocery bag loosely over the fork, a few inches down from the top cap so it doesn't melt from heat you've applied. That way if the cap shoots off when you're not there you will have a good chance of catching it and not have to go searching for it.

 

i have to think it's going to take almost as much force to get them out as it takes to knock them down to get the snap ring out

 

Isn't that Newton's 2nd Law of Force, or sumthing like that?

 

,

maybe you should replace the caps.

 

Can't replace them until he gets them out!

 

Make sure there's a GO PRO on that helmet, I wanna see this

 

I know that. I guess my question is who cares where they fly to if hes not home to see it, if he is going to replace them?
the quote above my first post shows concern of finding them"That way if the cap shoots off when you're not there you will have a good chance of catching it and not have to go searching for it."

 

if I could afford a go pro I wouldn't be trying to get these apart, I would buy a different set and rebuild them.

 

Oh. Ok. For ME--- if something flys off my bike, whether or not I'm gonna replace it, I want to know where it went. I don't want to find it 10 yrs later and be wondering where it came from at that time -----but that's just me...

 

Yea that just happened to me. took me a few days to figure where the C clip I found was from. couldnt see a single spot on the carbs where it would fit. sidestand switch .
I do think that op will remember those caps for a long time with the condition and process he is going through to get them free.

 

have you tried cold, I saw someone suggest using canned computer air to chill stuck screws.

 

Didn't try heat or cold yet. This weekend I will be at it again. Don't want to fire up the propane torch without the doors open,and I make sure the pblaster is dried and no fuel.