Front fork problem. Rebuilt but one side is stuck.

I rebuilt my forks about a year ago with new fork tubes and internals and they have sat unused ever since. Leg assemblies were stored upright without top caps or oil in my basement, in a box. One seems stuck and the other isn't so smooth. I yanked the moveable one open and the bushings seem fine but I recall I had a hard time with the bushings upon the rebuild. I think a bad fork tube caused me to have to hone the I.D. of one of the bushings.

Now all iternals are new and alloy so there is no corrosion.

I am also wondering if I bent the lower sliders slightly. I clamped them in a vise equipped with soft jaws and ha the legs wrapped in shop towels. The sliders held in the vise were clamped firm but not overly tight. I did this to get a grip on the slider while removing the seal holders. I was trying to install the fork onto the bike today and also install a Norman Hyde fork brace. I am wondering if the sliders were slightly deformed by me putting them in the vise? The sliders were not clamped tight enough in the vise to help undo the seal holders without me holding the slider with one hand too keep it from turning in the vise.

I was hoping to get the front end on this weekend but that is not going to happen. I hope I didnlt bend the sliders and just need a new fork tube to replace the wonky one that I had to fiddle with. I didn't even try to compress the forks before taking them apart. I just chucked them in the vise, loosened the seal holders then noticed one wasn't even moving at all.

I would pull them both apart and make sure nothing is binding. You might have some UFO's in there from sitting so long. Better to be safe than sorry.

I had some brand new bushes that would stick in the sliders until I machined the bush outside diameter a fraction. I don't think these were genuine Norton although i did buy them from a Norton supplier. Since then I only buy genuine Norton fork kits.

strip em.
oil your stantion to protect the seal and grease it and the stantion on re-assembly.
Check the bush fit on the stantion and then check the stantion in the slider, smear with oil.
both should be easy.
I presume you have internal springs, is your top nut on? They will be tight on spring compression if you have.
Stu

hi coco, when clamping the sliders in the vice i clamp mine by the spindle boss at the bottom, no chance of distorting them that way

chris plant said:

hi coco, when clamping the sliders in the vice i clamp mine by the spindle boss at the bottom, no chance of distorting them that way

Click to expand...

I did it that way when I rebuilt them and not sure why I didn't do that ast night. I even managed to scratch up the one polished slider. I was having a bad day yesterday I think.

I don't think I clamped the sliders hard enough to distort them but the thought crossed my mind. I had to use a piece of alloy round bar through the spindle boss to stop the leg assembly from spinning in the vise so clamp force was not that extreme'

One of my new OEM fork tubes was off in diameter and I had to enlarge the I.D. of the upper bushing on the leg in question here. I'm hoping that is the problem and not a distorted slider. Either way I'm ordering a new set of Sliders and bushings and will start from scratch.

Crappy thing is I really wanted to get the front end on today. I'm waiting for a lot of B.S. little parts and can't do much until they get here so the front end was my goal.

I guess I could start figuring out my wiring........

bigstu said:

strip em.
oil your stantion to protect the seal and grease it and the stantion on re-assembly.
Check the bush fit on the stantion and then check the stantion in the slider, smear with oil.
both should be easy.
I presume you have internal springs, is your top nut on? They will be tight on spring compression if you have.
Stu

Click to expand...

Top nuts were never installed and I'm going to pull the bad leg apart today and I pulled the other one apart yesterday. The fork tube in the bad leg won't compress or even depress. It's stuck in a position that is slightly compressed.

No spring nuts on so there is zero spring tension The one slider is simply stuck. Like I mentioned in my post above, I'm going to buy new tubes and bushings as one of my OEM fork tubes was iffy from the start and I knew it would come back to haunt me sooner or later. Besides, I put a nice deep scratch in the bad fork tube where the seal fits anyway when I did the( my first) rebuild last year.

This is the first problem I've encountered with my rebuild so far.

Coco, pop by and see Stuie and he will mike all your sliding parts and see what is what.

skydt said:

Coco, pop by and see Stuie and he will mike all your sliding parts and see what is what.

Click to expand...

I was going to call you Monday anyway :wink: . I'm pretty sure I need a new bushing kit.

Big thanks to skydt for helping me assess my fork troubles. It was a bushing problem on that slightly oversized fork tube I have. I think I'm still going to grab a new bushing set just in case.

Now I can resume to pulling out what is left of my hair and get to that pain in the arse Hyde fork brace install.