How to get the front forks apart???!!!!!

DoubleDub wrote: F it. Why bother posting my experience then.

+1, O.K. so I might as well throw in my .02. Nothing worked for either. Not the impact, not the broom handle (ouch!), nor the rod with rubber tip, etc, ... You never know what kind of thread lock the last guy in there used on that allen bolt. Finally used Gator grip (around $ with a couple of long extensions. It has the be the smaller one; 7-19 mm. Make sure it will fit in your upper tubes before you purchase. My dampening rod end was round but had to opposing flat sides. So the Gator Grip conforms to the shape. If yours is a hex shape then I suppose all you would need would be the right size socket instead. Good luck.

For reference --



Good Fortune!

If the allen bolts are stuck, apply heat w a propane torch. Or go ahead & apply the heat before trying to remove them.
Relieve the air pressure (if applicable) & dump out the fork oil first.

OK after reading this thread I decided to start doing my sons fork seals a little ahead of schedule.

He also has a KZ650 B2.

I did the ones on my 1000 so this is not my first rodeo, and I had good results using this method.

Remove forks and drain the oil by forcing the upper tube down into the outer tube, note; do this in a bucket because the nasty smelling oil will shoot out :sick:

Put the drain screw back in, wrap the lower tube in a protective towel and put it in a vise.

I tried to go straight to the impact driver but the bolt would not budge , I figured that maybe the bolt was locked up with the crush washer and outer tube so I got out the breaker bar and a 2x4 and gave it a few whacks until the bolt started to turn.

Then I went back to the impact driver and found that the bolt was spinning but not coming out , so I grabbed the upper tube and compressed it into the outer tube to create more pressure and tried again.
This time it worked

Both nuts are off, but I am going to wait until my son gets back into town before we replace the seals and dust covers, don't have them yet anyways.

JD

PS , put the forks back into the bucket and let them finish draining out of the bolt holes.

For those of you using impact drivers, are they the hit it with a hammer driver or the small cordless impacts? if so they usually won't work. When I say Impact wrench that is what I am talking about a 1/2 drive air impact wrench used for removing large bolts. I have tried using the hit it with a hammer type and the cordless impact drivers and have found they will not work.

baldy110 wrote: For those of you using impact drivers, are they the hit it with a hammer driver or the small cordless impacts? if so they usually won't work. When I say Impact wrench that is what I am talking about a 1/2 drive air impact wrench used for removing large bolts. I have tried using the hit it with a hammer type and the cordless impact drivers and have found they will not work.

I did mine with the forks still in the tree. In my case it was not a cordless tool or the type you whack with a hammer. The problem wasn't that the impact driver didn't have enough ooomph (it had plenty) the problem was that the fork cylinder just spun once the impact driver slightly loosened the bolt. The spring didn't exert enough force to prevent it from spinning. I suspect it was entirely my fault because when the first bolt came out easily I said to myself "Oh good, this will be a piece of cake." That was the kiss of death! :laugh: :laugh: Even drilling the bolt head off was really difficult (even though I had a tool to hold the fork cylinder) because once it bit, it required a lot of force to keep the drill bit from spinning the fork cylinder. My wife helped or I would have hacksawed the lower fork leg in half to get it off. :woohoo: Ed

DoubleDub wrote: F it. Why bother posting my experience then.

Relax man,theres always going to be exceptions to any rule.
I used the factory tool on a set of forks 30 plus years ago because we didn't have access to a compressor to help my dad tear apart a front end.
He actually slotted the top of the dampner rods and did the reverse on a socket so he wouldn't have to borrow the tool from somebody again.
With his set up you could just put that socket on couple really long extensions with a ratchet and use it to hold the dampner while you removed or installed the bolts.

I guess I got lucky, mine spun out with just an impact driver. The forks on the Seca Turbo however were a completely different experience.

I bought a 1/2" impact tool last year for working on the 1000 but it is still in the box.

I'm afraid of snapping old bolts.

So far my cordless Impact is doing the trick with the smaller stuff.

It is also real good for taking out the original never taken out before JIS screws using a modified Philips bit, just tap the trigger and they pop right out.