Opinions/Experiances Needed

1979 KZ650B3 ~20k on the ride.

I have the bike pretty much torn down right now as I am in the midst of a rejuvination (my first). The right side fork dust cover is split horizontally completely around it's circumfrence. I need to replace the pair obviously but should I take the time to rebuild the forks since I will be tearing more stuff down to get to the dust covers anyway.

All sage advice heeded and taken under consideration.

Thanks,

Rob

Yes, if your doing a rejuvenation you might as well do the forks.
Just loosen the triple tree bolts and wiggle the forks right out.

Tip #456-a.2

remove the forks and use an air tool to remove the bolt on the bottom of the forks that seperates the tube from the slider. Its almost impossible to do it any otherway. Or bring it to any shop and have them use an air tool to loosen the bolt completly.

Replace only the dust covers at 20k.

Spend your efforts on getting the bike back to nominal riding condition.

Replace stem bearings with tapered roller bearings, since you will have forks out. Makes triple tree far easier to manage.

rtrider73 wrote:

1979 KZ650B3 ~20k on the ride.

I have the bike pretty much torn down right now as I am in the midst of a rejuvination (my first). The right side fork dust cover is split horizontally completely around it's circumfrence. I need to replace the pair obviously but should I take the time to rebuild the forks since I will be tearing more stuff down to get to the dust covers anyway.

All sage advice heeded and taken under consideration.

Thanks,

Rob

I'd take them apart for a look and cleaning. If seals are not leaking, just replace the dust cover. Replace the eal retainer if corroded. If the tubes are pitted(then the seals probably are leaking) and you don't want to replace right now, polish them til they are as smooth as you can get them AND put in new seals. If you plan to keep the bike, it's cheaper to replace pitted tubes than to mess with the pits every season.

Tubes are clean. No leaks I can see. The works look all tight and clean under the dust covers.

Think I will save some time and just replace the dust covers, as I've never had any issues w/ the steering or suspension.

Thanks to everyone for their input.

Keep an eye on how things progress in the "Projects" forum. kzrider.com/component/option,com_joomlab.../id,154764/catid,11/

~R