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24 July 05 - Front End Work |
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Monday, 25 July 2005 |
Today I tore the front end apart. I knew the steering head bearings needed adjusting, so I figured I might as well repack them too.
Boy, that's a fun job.
All kinds of stuff hangs off the front of this bike. The headlight, the brake fluid reservior, etc. It's all attached to a framework that you can take off all of a piece, but it's still a bit of work.
The Haynes manual, in their typical British fashion, states that it will require "a bit of dexterous spanner work". That's for sure. It wasn't too bad getting it apart, but it probably would have been easier to put it back together with a helper.
So anyway, I got all the stuff off the front and took apart the steering head. Glad I decided to do that, I don't think it's ever been repacked. It didn't have very much grease in there, and what was in there was that nasty, brown, hardened old stuff.
So I cleaned it up and repacked it. As I was reassembling, I discovered that one of the loose ball bearings was missing. I know I didn't drop any, so someone must have been in here before. Oh well, the bottom takes more load, so it gets the right number of balls.
Got that put together again, then I pulled the caps out of the forks and drained them. I'm not going to replace the fork seals right now, just going to put in new fork oil. If it turns out that the seals are leaking, then I'll deal with it.
Man that old fork oil was nasty.
The forks on this bike have air valves on them for air assist on the springs and they had a little pressure in them still when I pulled them off so that's a good sign that there is no leakage.
So, I have to stop on the way home after work and get some fork oil, then I can reassemble the front end and then take the rear end apart. Going to check the swingarm bearings and probably repack them too.
The fun never ends!
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Last Updated ( Monday, 25 July 2005 )
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