What A Forkin' Day I Had!!!
Today's game plan: Rebuild both forks, get the calipers cleaned, soak the chain in a kerosene bath, and remount the front wheel.
Unfortunately, Murphy's Law was in full effect!
I got down to the garage by 7:30am this morning.
Started breaking down fork number 1. I had drained the bulk of the "mud" upstairs yesterday so I wouldn't have to deal with a big mess in the garage.
I removed the cartridge next and as you can see the oil was pretty bad.
Looking at the rust under the dust cover, I assumed that this would be the first time these forks was cracked open.
I pulled apart the upper and lower and cleaned everything spotless.
Bottom tube looking good to go!
All internals and new pieces ready to go in.
New oil seal ready to be driven home.
The Motion Pro driver makes short work of installing seals.
Oil seal and new dust cover installed.
So now the fun begins! I go to re-install the cartridge in the fork tube and fasten it down. I had my 8mm T-Handle Hex and I go to just hand tighten it for now, and with no pressure whatsoever, SNAP! She just keeps spinning! I said to myself, "that didn't sound good at all"! Here comes Murphy!
The bottom of the cartridge just snaps right off!
I'm dead in the water! A new cartridge, if they have it, is $246.00 Dollars! OUCH! So I made the call! No, not Partshark, Tony (NJFZ1). He just happened to have a spare set sitting in his house and was gracious enough to let me drive over and pick them up for next to nothing! THANK YOU TONY!!!! So I packed up what I had done and headed over.
Me and Richie get to Tony's house, pick up the forks, and decided that we'd head over to Cycle Gear in Edison and use my gift card to get the Oil, Filter, and new GoPro Mounts that I need.
The store was packed and there were bikes everywhere. I saw this sweet Bonnie outside. Looking at all these guys riding in made me feel left out. So we high tailed it home so I could get this bike finished and back on the road!
So we get back to NY, I run upstairs and break out the compressor and impact gun and bust loose both caps. Ready again to rebuild.
As you can see in this photo, the cartridge end on the right was mine. The arrow points to an imperfection that I thought was part of the piece, but as you can see, the fork that Tony had was perfect. I know now that the P.O. did in fact have these forks done and whoever did them had not inserted the cartridge correctly. It's probably why the other one cracked in the first place.
Now with both of Tony's cartridges installed perfectly, I was on the home stretch.
First fork with new 7.5WT Oil.
I used Tony's springs because mine were out of spec at 11.25in. His were the correct 11.5in which is what the manual states.
After the first one was bled and put back together, the second was a piece of cake, which is what both should have been from the beginning. An hour job turned into a whole day project, but in the end I have two beautiful shining new forks!
I was so full of forks today, I even rebuilt the extra fork that Tony gave me, which came out perfect, and I will be returning to him the next time I see him. This way he could sell it or keep it as a spare. I used the best of all the parts I had left and it works fine.
So that was my day today. I didn't get to finish everything I planned, but I did get to see Tony, and also spent some quality time with Richie which was very nice. Tomorrow I should have everything I planned for today finished with more pics to come. Thanks for looking! Oh, and Happy Easter to all and your families!!!
opcorn: I hope to change springs and fluid this summer just like Eric did. I'll be adding the rear Penske like Eric too. Next thing I'll be adding a TBR exhaust like Eric. Maybe you could bring Eric with you when you come to clean my FZ. 
Wring out the cloth before wiping down the wheels.... no drippage!!! :tup:
