Look At My Big Tool

So there has been an ongoing discussion about what to do with the silencers, whether to bodge them with hope, blind optimism, some mild steel and far more faith in my limited welding skills than anyone reasonable ought to have. 

Or I could just throw money at the problem and buy some new silencers.

But since this is the LDU then I have a cunning plan with respect to the silencers

Whether history will show the plan to be as cunning as a fox who's just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University or just the ill fated gay abandon of a man that was briefly shown how to weld back in 2015 and then went and bough a Lidl stick welder remains to be seen. Possibilities include fire in a Cornish garage, an ill-fated breakdown on the A9, or even the abject triumph of someone who arrives at John O'Groats without both silencers falling off somewhere around Devon are all eminently possible. Some however are more likely then others. Probably the ones involving the fire brigade and the RAC...

Anyway, enough of that, onto something far more positive. After watching a couple of Youtube videos and a evening buying the cheapest tools available on fleabay™ I've made a start on the leaking fork. I'd already purchased the seals and a bottle of Motul fork oil, but I've never actually disassembled a fork on my own before. I've helped with a couple of USD ones in GT's but this was going got be a trip into the relatively unknown. But again, what's the worst that could happen? Anyway, once the postie turned up with this lot, I could crack on because time waits for no badger, or something.

 

 
To disassemble each fork I only needed the bearing puller, and that is for removing the circlip that retains the spring out of the top of the fork. Before you do that though according to the Youtube videos it's a good idea to undo the Allen bolt on the underside of the fork that retains the damper rod. It's a risk following Youtube videos, sometimes the creator is more filled with confidence than actual knowledge. In this instance they were correct in that the spring tension keeps the damper rod from rotating, the other option according to the Haynes Manual is to either make or buy an expensive Kawasaki tool to keep the damper rod captive. I chose to do it the Youtube way, which thankfully very much worked, although despite a good dousing in Silkopen still required the wooden workbench, a ratchet strap to counter it opening the jaws and a good hoof from the medium breaker bar to undo.

But open it did in the end. After that it went back in the yoke and I used the shiny new bearing puller to force down the cap so I could fish out the retaining circlip. And isn't it a whopping great big tool, matron! 

I think I might have been able to get away with a much smaller puller, but it worked well and after a brief bit of twiddling I was able to get the retainer and cap out of the top of the leg allowing the spring to be removed and the old oil to be drained.

Out sesame!

Next job, drain the assembly properly and see how much damage there is to the stanchion. The spacer is pretty corroded, but not sure that really matters to be honest. We'll see how bad the rest of it is tomorrow after a good cleaning. I dearly wish I had a parts washer now, might take a wonder down to the local garage and ask nicely...