Forks

I have been putting off doing this for as long as I can remember. Watched Rick do it and hate his life, then Tim....... At the end of the season my CL started leaking fluid. It was one of the two things I didn't go through when I built that bike because it was fine at the time and I knew I wanted to shorten them but not how much... blah blah blah I didn't do it...... Now I have a new project bike and the forks from this donor bike are also leaking so I decided to use this snow day from school (forth in a row...i am going to hate June) to not only rebuild but shorten them by 1.25 inches to match the height of the CL. I will take the forks currently on the CL off next and shorten and rebuild them for my new project as soon as I get the rear end completely figured out. .. . . . ANYWAY...here are some pictures.

Kitchen table cleared off and covered. Drained forks on the chopping block.

Removed the circlip, old fork seals and bottom bolt. I struggled with the old fork seals until I found a 1 inch diameter pvc tube that popped them right off.
A lot happened between the last picture and now. I went to cyclerecycle for advice from Rob and finally decided to cut off the top of the rod about 1.25 inches, then rethread it (7mm 1.0). Then I used a vice to get the top cap off of it. I also ended up cutting the springs down almost and inch on each side. I wanted more load from the springs in the front since my travel went from about 3 inches to 1.75. The picture below is everything cleaned and ready for re-assembly.
New fork seals were not as bad to get in as I thought they would be. I used the old ones to slowly guide them in with a mallet. Locktite in all the appropriate spots. Specs call for about between 5.8 and 6.5 ounces of fork oil. Keeping in mind that there is less space for the oil to hang out in because I shortened things up, I added 5.5 ounces.

The main thing I did not do was add the locknut under the cap. Space was tight and I don't think it will cause any problems. I will keep the locknuts aside just in case I need them later....

Thanks to Rob at cyclerecycle (http://crc2onlinecatalog.com/) for the advice. No thanks to the 19mm open end wrench that decided it wanted to be a 20mm wrench while I was taking the cap off the second fork.

I have to do this to at least 1, probably 2 more sets of these in the next month or two. Not too bad but definitely a few hours worth of work.