Boing Boing

Honda Goldwing Aspencade Front Forks

They hold the front up!

18th July 2005. I'm on the road again....

Well, the short of the long is that Freddy got sick of tripping over the bike bits that were piling up at the back door while I worked on the thing.....so, the order came down...."Fix it, NOW!" I did not wait for the "or else", secretly I don't think there was an or else, but I don't generally need to be told to do things twice.

Forks.

1. Decide if you are going to leave the forks on the bike or not and if you are going to leave the springs in or not.

There are some good reasons for leaving them on. Its actually easier (IMHO) because the top fork tube is held firmly and you have the weight of the bike to press against. Not having the proper fork seal driver (or any pipe to make one out of) and or a vice to hold everything in makes it pointless to take the top tubes out. The springs do not need to be taken out since you can drain the fork oil from the bottom of the legs and refill them from the air joints on the top of the fork. But having said all that, I will describe removing the springs, because if you have not done it before, you need to do it at least once so you can see what sort of springs you have.

2. Remove the front wheel.

Think about where you are going to do this job, once the wheel is off, the bike is not going to be easy to move until its all back together! If you have all the parts, then its only going to take 1-2 hours at the most (2nd time round, 3-5 hours for the first time). Put the bike on the center stand (heh, good luck!). Put a jack or block of wood under the motor to hold the front wheel off the ground. Make sure this is pretty solid, you are going to be rocking the bike a fair bit, you do NOT want it falling over!

Undo and remove the 4x19mm silver bolts that hold the two brake calipers on. Undo and remove the philips head screw that holds on the speedo cable (you may have some fun doing this, try an impact driver). Remove the brake calipers. Use some string or ocky strap to hold the calipers up so they don't hang on the hose. Remove the 4 axle holder bolts and the 2 axle holders. remove the front wheel. Undo and remove the 4 bolts that hold on the front mud guard. Slide the guard out the way and clear of the forks. Tie it back.

3. Disassemble the front forks.

Bleed off all air pressure in the forks. Put a bucket under the forks and remove the alan key from the very bottom of each fork leg. Let the forks drain while you do some more work. Undo the 3 air hose connections on the top of the fork caps. Remove the two fork caps. (I used a larger shifter, be very careful, they are under a fair bit of spring pressure!) Remove the springs, noting what way they come out. It shouldn't matter which leg, but if you have original springs, they should go back the same way. If you have progressive springs fitted, it matters not which way up they are. Now pump the lower legs up and down a bit to get some more oil out.

Use your hands or gentle use of a fine flat blade screwdriver to prize up the dust seal. Slide it up the fork leg so its out the way. Use proper "C" clip pliers or needle nose pliers to remove the "C" clip. Make sure you really squeeze it together, that's the only way its going to come out. Now, here comes the fun part. What we have to do now is force the old oil seal out of its seat and get the bottom leg separated from the upper leg. We do this by taking hold of the bottom leg, sliding it as far up the top leg as it will go and then with all your might sliding (slamming!) it down! The first time I did this, it took me about 20-30 goes before I got it to shift, the second it only took about 10-20 slams. Guess I did the first 20 slams too soft! Of course it goes with out saying make sure the "C" clip is all the way out before you start doing this!