17 April 2009

The End Goal: Sonic .90 Springs and New Url

After spending most of the day fixing up my step-dad's '79 Cub Cadet 1250 (new seat and arm rests, needed to drill and tap the seat for the arm rests), I finally made it back to the man cave to button up the valve check.

Getting a torque wrench on the rear #1 cylinder bolt was a real PITA. Anyway, I got both valve covers back on and took another hour to get the darn airbox and 14 hoses back together.

While down in the cave I took off the clip-ons and loosened the lower triple pinch bolts forks.

The forks just dropped right out! WOOHOO

18 April 2009

My sister in law dropped by, so the kids and I snuck down to the cave again. I hooked up my eldest's bicycle to a little push car and he 'drove' the bike and trailer around the basement. My daughter squealed with joy as he did laps on the bicycle.

Mean while, over at the bench, I popped off the first fork protector. The second one is off now, but broken, a replacement is on its way (Thanks Seb!). I then backed the fork cap off the first fork and poured the sludge out into a empty kitty litter bucked.

What stench! Gross!

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I tried to budge the bottom bolt with my T-handle 6mm wrench as my socket 6mm isn't long enough to fit in. No budging. Great. After much sifting through my wrench drawer I found a 6mm alan key. I dremeled away and cut the L off. With a 6mm 1/4" socket, then a 1/4" to 3/8" socket adapter, I chucked this monstrosity into my cheap impact wrench.

Adapterators

Fired up the air compressor (this drove the kids out of the basement), and wailed away. And wailed away. I ended up twisting the cut alan key. Back to the T-handle. Pop! Out came the bottom bolt.

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Back to the bucket. Damping rod and spring into the bucket. I sloshed as much oil as I could out of the tubes. Nasty smelly sludge.

I nudged the top seal off. No issues. Take out the retaining ring. No issues there either. Now... the oil seal. The service manual shows a little fork slide McGillicudy up-down action. Ok, service manual says so... stretch, stretch, stretch, pop. COOL!

Inspection of the bottom of the tube show NO wear on the teflon coated bushing. SWEET! Same for the other fork.

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Right now, the damping rods are 'draining' into the bucket, awaiting the next trip to the man cave.