Hello -- and forks.

Hi everyone, I'm excited to get involved in this wonderful community. I've read around a bit, and I've searched for my issue specifically, but I waited to long and now, unfortunately, my first post is a plea for help.

My bike's an '84 VF500F Interceptor that I picked up... Probably over a month ago now. They seller thought it had carb issues, so I got a good deal for the price of rebuilding the petcock. I don't have a shop, or any decent tool collection, so I am limited to working at the house of a great friend and mentor of mine. He's been teaching me what he knows of bikes, on top of his usual mechanical engineering lessons.

My issue is this: I bought new oil and seals/wipers for the front forks, and I made the "special tool" (flattened 6-sided socket) to disassemble the forks and everything went smoothly coming apart. I drained the oil, the spring and piston dropped right out after that... However the stanchion will not come out... Regardless of what I do to it, offer it, or yell at it. I have the FSM and have followed all the directions to the best of my ability, however when it comes to the "Gently tap stanchion out against bushing" part, my efforts seem to be fruitless. Any advice/suggestions would be most greatly appreciated!

Cheers,

Avery Hughes.

 

Welcome to the forum. I can't help you but there are many here who can and should pipe up soon. Good luck.

 

Welcome aboard. "When in doubt use a hammer, the bigger the doubt the bigger the hammer" Jokes aside though, I haven't worked on VFR forks but you may find that its the old seal holding them together so a couple of good tugs might do the trick. Good luck.

 

I have no exsperiance with fork rebuilding, BUT try Youtube, as they have several how to's on rebuilding forks.

Goodluck!

 

If you have the retaining ring for the seal oot then just slide the tube oot and tap it apart......maybe have to man handle it a bit and bang it apart as it has been together for some time I am thinking.

 

like dah man above sed, once you got that spring clip-retaining ring oot, just use the bottom part of the fork leg as a "slide-hammer" its very satisfying wang-oh-ing on stuff like that. It should just give its-self up and virtually come apart in your hands. Just dont splash ur-self with old fork oil, as you will have to burn your clothes and be banned to eating with your dogs, as you will be smelling like the inside of a sperm whales guts (dont ask me how me knows this!)

Gud luck, nice truck in the back-ground, is it French?

 

>>once you got that spring clip-retaining ring oot,
I removed the circlip, as per the FSM.

>>just use the bottom part of the fork leg as a "slide-hammer"
I tried that, just as the manual says, with some serious force and can't get it to overcome what looks like the resistance of the bushing (if I'm looking at the pix in the manual correctly).

>>nice truck in the back-ground, is it French?
Yes, like I said I work on the bike at my friends house, and he's a bit of a Citroën fiend.