Steering Column And Fork Service

[HispanicSlammer]

My friend Craig was having some problems with his bike, when he would stop he could hear a clunk when he grabbed brakes. I told him his steering bearings were probably loose.

So he decided to tear the bike down, he removed the steering column and cleaned the races and bearing in some solvent.

This picture is the steering head, he had already removed all that stuff before I came over.

I told him since he had the forks off we should go ahead and change the fork oil since he has 50k miles on them. He said "I am way ahead of you bud" as he pulled out the new fork oil he bought.

Here I am dumping out the old oil, it was the wrong stuff, it was the 10w honda oil! The 96 VFR calls for 5w clear, this stuff was red like mine which is 10w. Craig said when he took off the forks he noticed that the right fork was sitting 2mm higher than the left one! Whoever serviced the forks last time must have been an idiot!

We could not get the cartridge out since the hex keys he has are the rounded ones and they stripped when we tried to get the bolts out of the bottom.

We just pumped them out as best we could and added the new oil, 14.5oz to a height of 7" to the top of the fork I had to pour some out and add some to get the correct oil height.

We counted the treads to make sure that the cap was screwed in the same spot on the damping rods for both forks, that way the preload would be the same for both forks.

This is the top race, it was slightly pitted but nothing major, I told Craig he should replace them, he agreed but not for the moment.

(The clean bearings before we repacked them with grease.

we packed in new grease and slipped the steering column back on fitted on the bolt and hand tightened it made sure it was smooth and not too tight.

Craig tapped on the pinch bolt and tightened it down then bent the clips back in place

Here I am setting the forks to their CORRECT position in the triple tree 39mm to from the triple tree to the top of the fork crown.

Here is Craig tightening the bottom pinch bolts after I set the forks

We put the axle in to make sure the forks were not twisted in the triple tree made sure it lined up correctly.

We put the wheel on, brakes, and fairings and then we set the sag to 35mm for front and back, he likes a slightly soft ride.

Heh Craig rides really fast and I wonder just how fast he can ride with a bike that is actually set up correctly :goof: it is a wonder how he rode it like that the way he does