Fork Help Please

Hello,

I've been lurking here for the last week or so. I have a 1982 xj750 seca. I think it is an "r" model. My current problem has to do with removing the fork sliders. One side dissambled fine, except I cant get the slider out of the tube. It seems to be hitting the fork seal when I pull it up. Did I miss some part that needs to be removed? The other fork is a different story all together. The "cap" seemes to be rust welded in the slider. I soaked it with wd-40, pounded on it for a while, and even heated it up with a torch. It will not budge. Has anyone had experience with this? Are there any tricks to getting the caps out? Any help greatly appreciated.....

Nachoman 8)

 

The caps have to be pushed down about 1/4 inch then remove the small wire circlip inside, this wire ring holds the cap in.
As for separating the fork tubes get a 3 inch long metrc bolt with a 19mm head double nut the other end( install 2 nuts and tighten them together). insert into tube. Use a 18 inch extention on your ratchet and put in tube to hold inside bolt. On the bottom of the tube you'll see a allen head bolt, this bolt should have loctite on it so it may be tight While holding the inside bolt, loosen the allen bolt and remove it.
Then you should be able to remove the inside shaft.
Then remove the wiper seal(dust seal), then there should be another wire clip holding the oil seal in, remove it and the seal.

This is not the proper size bolt, but you get the idea. the measurements for the proper tool are shown above. I also welded the nuts to the bolt. If you do that you could use 1 nut.

 

Hey JDRich- THANKS for a great explanation. I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to disassemble my forks to replace the oil seals, and reading the Yamaha shop manual mentions 2 special tools- one to hold the inner tube, and one to properly seat the oil seal. Your description makes it sound pretty easy.
Thanks again
Bill Carroll

 

Bill, another opinion to add to the great advice Rich sent you. You can probably expect to find the wire circlips in the tube slider to be rusted as well. The dealer wanted $13 a piece for those stupid things so I popped on down to the local hardware store and bought internal "E" clips of 1" size to replace them at a dollar a pop. Much beefier and can be had in stainless steel. If you brouse our forum, you will find similar questions and some great tricks posted. Good luck!

 

Something I forgot, when you remove the bolt from the bottom of the fork, it has a brass sealing washer on it. When I removed mine the washers were stuck inside the tube and I lost one. If you can find replacements I suggest replacing them. They are similar to the brass washers on brake lines. In fact if you could find them the same size they should work.

 

Snosherff; I posted that pic and deleted it from my gallery. I'll post it again when I get home

 

Thanks for all the replies so far. I've got the circle clips out of both sliders. The fork I was able to get apart seemed to have the bottom bolt going into the dampening rod. I got that bolt out with the sealing washer. My problem is: when I pull the slider out of the leg it comes almost all the way out, then stops, almost like there is an oversized washer on the bottom of the slider that hits the seal. On another note, I had read the posts about the 19 mm socket thing, but I couldn't find a part on my fork that looked like that. The other fork basically has the spring cap frozen in the slider. I think I might have to drill it out somehow and get a new one. Keep the ideas coming.....

 

I know just what you are encountering Nacho, your gonna have to just yank that sucker out. The seal is rusted into the leg seat. It will pop out if you just use the slider tube like a slide hammer. As for the 19mm dohicky, it is the damper rod top that has a knurled internal head that the 19mm bolt head drops into. The Haynes manual has a nice picture of the bolt and nut stack Rich is referring to.

 

I'll give 'er a go tomorrow. I just used my impact wrench for the allen head bolt, and it worked great. Thanks for all the suggestions so far. Anyone else on the fork cap problem??

 

Well, I tried the slide hammer approach, and the slider still won't come out. Then I stuck a section of 1" steel pipe down the slider, and pounded on it. That didn't budge it either. I'm really up the creek here. Does anyone have any ideas? The other fork cap is still stuck as well. I'm about to toss this thing in the dumpster........AAAARRRRRRGGGGHHH!!!!

 

It is a royal pain and requires a little more than what I concider normal force to do this. Don't give up, try a little harder. Let the slider tube seat all the way down the leg, have a buddy hold the leg, and pull as hard and as fast as you can away from said buddy while he pulls opposite. Have faith brother!

 

Should I be able to pound it out from the top? It really won't budge at all. I've already got a bunch of parts requests in to salvage yards......

 

Not to my understanding of your response. DO NOT continue sticking anything down into the slider to pound it out! YOU will do damage! Dang it, wish I had caught that in your last post. This will only screw up your damper rod! Let me see if I can be clearer on this. The "slide hammer" approach is not a one man opperation unless you can clamp the leg firmly in a bench vise that is securely bolted down (use a little padding to prevent the soft aluminum from being scored). It WILL take a bit of muscle! Another quick question, did you remove the circlip springs that rest on top of the seals first?

 

Addendum to my previous post. The pounding of a 1" pipe into the slider will not damage the damper rod if you removed it already. It will instead mess up the machined surface of the fork tube itself, making a good seat for the damping rod very difficult. DO NOT DO this. It is an excercise in futility. The bottom of the slider tube is cupped with a hole for the securing bolt threaded through it. This means all your pounding is for naught, your simply beating on the slider tube itself, further seating it in the leg, not the opposite. Your pipe banging more than likely will damage the sealing surface of the bottom of the slider tube. Let's try another tack, attempt to pry out the old seal with a screwdriver. Don't worry about tearing up the seal, your replacing it anyway. Shred it up and pry it up. Let us know where you are when you can. Rob.

 

SUCCESS!!! My forks are disassembled! The fork with the slider sticking issue, turned out to be a retaining clip problem. As in I hadn't found the retaining clip for the fork seal yet. Once I removed the outer seal and the retaining clip, everything came apart fine. The other fork which had the cap issue ended up being harder to figure out. One of the PO's had installed Progressive springs in the bike (as well as Koni's in the rear). The preload spacers are made out of pvc pipe. When I heated up the fork in attempt to free it, the pvc melted and effectively welded the cap to the slider. Once I realized this, I just heated up the slider real good to melt the pvc, and the cap came out after a few good whacks upside down on a 2x4. Now the only question is, how badly did I harm the first slider by whacking on it with the pipe. Any ideas???

I am a happy camper. Thanks for all the help and encouragement.

 

Didn't I mention that clip Nacho? I'm pretty sure I did. Your guess is as good as mine on the slider tube. I believe I wailed and nashed my teeth writing the last post I sent you. I would chuck it unless you know someone with a borescope that can snake down inside the slider to check it out. If all of the parts slide in and out freely, just slap it together and see how it rides. If it sticks, you need new ones.

 

Oh you mentioned it. The problem was I thought it had been left out. This is my first time disassembling forks. And there are a few bodge jobs on this bike. All my older Yamahas (RD 350's) Have much larger dust seals. I figured the dust seals were the fork oil seals, so I didn't remove them first. I just didn't dig deep enough, and the parts diagram on the Yamaha site isn't that clear. Is there a place that reproduces the sliders, Or should I just get a set of used forks?

 

I don't understand why the seal was holding the tube in. I removed my tubes before taking my seals out, of course I have a maxim so they may be different. Unless the damper was stuck to the tube. I had to remove the seals before I could remove the damper, but the shaft came right out.

 

hmm i'm thinking about changing my seals too

i found a guy who says he has forks

and that i should just swap forks.

the question is: are maxim and seca forks the same?

or are 750 and 650 forks the same, etc?

i'm dieng to get my cd/parts exchange when is it due?

 

There is a large collar around the bottom of the fork sliders. It is too wide to fit through the seal, or at least it was in my case.

 

The large collar is the lower bearing for the slider tube. That will help pop the old seal out. Save if it is in good shape. Are you willing to slap them together and find out if you did any damage? If not, here we go. As for forks (here I go again) check out Franks Maintenance and Engineering (http://www.frankmain.qpg.com/). He'll set you up with new sliders for about half the dealer cost, and that is delivered to your door in North America. SecaMan, the forks are different (valving) between the Max and the Seca but the design is similar. They both have dust seals, circlips, and fork fluid seals. The 650 and 750 both run a 42mm diameter but they are different internally.

 

hmm ok

i was thinking are they the same length?

would they change my angle? etc

i'll have to see his forks then

he said he had to look for them! :roll:

 

I don't know about the length, I never swapped them. I don't have them immediately handy so I can't run right out and check them either. I don't expect they would change your angle so long as you clamp the tubes in the same place as the stockers. If they are a little longer, just clamp a little lower. Best I can do for you bud. Good luck!

 

82 air forks too , i replacing the seal on da forks whilst waiting.

i found on mine there is no place for a tool or bolt for the inner tube thingymabob , here's a pic of it , just undid the allen bolt on the bottom of the leg and it came out....

removed my ok circlips and just yanked out the main fork tubes and the seal popped out with it...

Also there was heeps of crud and slush in the bottom of the tubes and in the antidive section too [in another post] , all up it really did not take to long to get it all in bits , a good clean and reassemble with new seals ect will last another few years again [i do not think its ever bin done on this bike] cheers....

 

i think this is the photo you were looking for

 

nope , what i try to say is there is no place for a nut or bolt....or anything

 

And a further update , for air forks with antidive .

Right down the bottom of the forks is this thing [pictured] , one has to give the bottom fork leg a few [5 or more] good drops on a rag on the floor upside down of course to get it out.

Around that thing is a plastik piston type ring , mine had sludge in both in the ring gaps and where it fits so it was jammed and not movable.

i carefully removed said ring , cleaned the gaps and used fine wet and dry on the piston to make shure it was free and could turn around.

That thing and the ring seperates the top antidive section to the underneath side of the antidive system in the fork leg so it would need a fairly good seal....

 

As for your damping rod, sounds like your stuck using an impact gun. What does your book suggest for your type of fork? My Haynes doesn't mention anything about a damper without the fluting. Another thought, I've seen a wedge type tool that is rather an obtuse pyramid that will pop onto the end of a 3/8" extension and wedges itself into the damper top. Might be your fix. I don't know where I saw it, I'll try to find the reference for you. All your work is exposing the fact that I didn't do half the work I needed to to properly overhaul my forks HooNz, now I've got to go back in to ensure mine are working properly! Thanks for taking the plung, I'm going to use your suggestions!

 

Thannnnks alot robert , i hope it does assist , see i do not have a book as yet so was going in the deep end , and of course assisted via these greate forums here on xjbikes.com.

thats probably why i found that thing [i'm too lazy to look on the yam parts page using dialup] , whats that down there i see's and why does it turn a little from the lower side holes and why no come out?

i am glad i tried.. as like you it would bug me later on if i found out a cupla months from now , i have no before test so i'll only know its ok as it should be when i get this thing on the road..

and by the way as one see's the rods are out and were no problem to get out tis why i made the comment about the tool , maybe mine is [oviobsly] different..

 

Perplexing to say the least. I've never seen a damper without the ridges on any of the Yamaha, Honda, Kawasaki, or Susuki's I've rebuilt.