Fork seal replacement

[agedbikeman]

This is an age old problem fork spring removal tool.
After I built my own tool it worked a treat and I wrote about it on this forum, one of the new seals burst, bought on Ebay, so it's forks out again, fitted new seal, but after 4 hours of trying I just could not pick up the thread on the caps, even though one cap thread was slightly damaged, I had no problem screwing it in by hand without the spring in, I've heard of others with the same problem and thought, wouldn't it be good if you could compress the spring first then screw the cap in by hand."IMPOSSIBLE" I hear you say, well here it is.
you need 2, 30mm steel discs, no chance so I bought a foot of 30mm x 4mm steel bar.

First cut 2x 30mm so you have 2 30mm squares, find the centre and mark it

Nest drill and tap a 6mm hole in the centre, and cut off the corners

Now you need 3 to 4 inches of 6mm threaded rod

Next drill and tap a 6mm hole on the head of the 10mm bolt that you insert in the fork cap of your home made compessor, only needs to be 1/2 inch deep and put the cap and disc you just made onto the 6mm rod

Now compress the spring, you will notice the cap is loose on the 6mm rod at all times, it's the disc you made that compresses the spring, not the cap like ususal.

When you have compressed the spring below the thread in the fork tube, you can now screw the cap on with your fingers

you can now remove the spring compressor, also the 6mm rod, the disc you made stays in the fork on top of the spring forever, compressing the spring by an extra 4mm which I don't see as a problem

So much easier than trying to pick up the ca[ thread under the pressure of the spring

I fitted a fork cap in 15 mins without fear of cross threading.

Before you start, mark the cap and fork tube in the place where the thread starts

Don't forget to torque the caps after you put the forks back in the bike.

Alex

[WingAdmin]

That's why I like using the Honda tool - the threads on the pusher rod match the threads on the cap, it makes it extremely easy to seat and screw in the cap under spring pressure.

[cbx4evr]

That's why I like using the Honda tool

Man that's expensive, but if it saves you grief I suppose it's worth the price. I only had to do fork seals on my GL1500 once. Built my own compressor out of wood that worked a treat

[agedbikeman]

But there's 240 reasons why I don't have the Honda one, my one cost 10$ and after the mod with the internal plate, works just as well, I also had the fun of building it. If I was a better welder, I'd be making them to sell for 50$.

Also, try buying the Honda one in France.