Well I decided this weekend, I was gonna make some progress on my forks. It all started last week, when I got the itch to put some of those black fork gators on, after I read some of the posts on here, I fgured if I'm gonna go through the effort, I might as well drain and refill the oil with some good stuff in those forks, and I after I digested it some more I decided, well if I'm gonna go through all that I might as well put in some decent springs up there and make it not so boingy hitting bumps.
So, got my amsoil Shock Therapy Suspension Fluid #10 Medium just delivered friday, got my fork gators from ebay yesterday ( thanks to the members on hd forums for the bsa/triumph gator link), and unfortunately my new progressive stock springs won't be here til tuesday mornin.
Decided to rip into it tonight,
here some pics


all jacked up, tied down, forks allready off. Parts strategically placed in garage for reinstallation (kinda).


Side view of the old girl waiting for a fork oil transplant, by the way if I havn't mentioned it today, GAWD I love that j and S jack, man it's rock solid an so easy to work with.

While I got a little down time, I went ahead since caliper was coming off and cleaned up caliper, bled brakes with fresh fluid, and die grinded some grooves in my pads to combat chatter, when I do replace those, I will go with some good after market pads, that allready have this.

Now here's the fork oil that came out of my bob, 5400 miles old, it's not clear, or purple or what ever the stuff looks like out of the bottle that hd sells. Looks about the same as my left over coffee maker grinds, coffee remnants, nasty black. I know my amsoil won't look like that going in.

I bought an extra quart of the amsoil fork oil, though it's use a little of it to try and was out some of the remaining muck in the tubes.

Gotta fill the tubes back up tmorrow, I need to review my notes from other users but if I'm not mistaken with the progressive stock springs I ordered I think you guys are using around 5 in from top lip of fluid, is that right????
I looked at the progressive instructions online briefly and they mention stock level, so I've got my service manual but seems like you guys were putting in a little different amount since these springs displace more?
Feedback welcome on that.
Thanks, Russ

By the way, so far it's been real simple, took me longer to bleed the brakes than to do this fork stuff, the only thing I got creative with was removing that fork cap, after I broke the initial torque, I turned it over in a bucked, with 1 3/8 socket and ratchet attached to it and then put a beach towel under my gut and rotated back and forth, letting the ratched do the work down in the bucket til finally it puked it's innards in the bottom of th bucket.
Hopefully going back together is just as painless.

 

http://www.progressivesuspension.com...rings/3055.pdf You should pump them to bleed any air after you refill them, then check the level.

 

Well my new progressive springs are still scheduled to be here tomorrow so today just got things cleaned up and ready.
I did go by the progressive install instructions and put in the amsoil fork oil after stroking that shaft (did I really just say that), up to the 5.5inch mark from lip. Put both shocks back in the triple tree where they await springs and finish it up.
I thought today since I had it mainly apart I would go ahead and do the replacement of the steering head washer as well because I do have some slight KLUNKING, so what better time tha the present. Also figured I would go ahead and check/regrease the neck bearings.


Now I know the flash is a little bright here but when I pulled these bearings out my first reaction was "Where's the beef, I mean grease", they look like they were dusted with a light coating of grease, not properly packed for sure.


Races all appeared pretty good, so just cleaned em all up.

Bought soem Royal Purple grease and repacked, strike that, packed these suckers like they had never been from day one.


Here is the new washer replacing that other sad excuse, I laughed when I saw the original, it's like about two sheets of tinfoil thick, and it was almost handtight, I think the original specs were about 40foot pounds of torque.
Got the new washer on and torqued it down to 75ft pounds and did a half *** fall away check (no tire, brake, on yet), I'll have to reverify that one in the end to make sure my adjusting nut tightness is accurate.

 

fantastic write up man! just awesome! hey man if you can do a fall away adjustment when you re assemble it?

 

great write up, did the new washer come form hd? i am getting ready to take mine apart and get some powder laid down on it.

 

ya it is for the fork chatter, if you need me to look up the part number i can, it was cheap like 5 bucks

 

Just finished up last night and will have to get a new pic up with the fork gaitors on now

Anyrate, I had mentioned I did the fall away test without it being completely reassembled, it was the best I could do at the moment without the tire, fender, brakes caliper on. I think I got her pretty darn close. After getting everything up and installed last night, I checked one more time, before letting her down off the jack, and pretty darn close if I say myself. Actually the book shows how to do it but in my opinion, it's not real clear cut, meaning your version and my version of smoothly falling away might be slightly different, but main thing I believe is it should be smooth both directions, with very little effort.

Here is another tip, there is a part number for the KIT and a part number for the WASHER. The KIT is the WASHER and an instruction sheet, that's it. The WASHER is just that, WASHER and NO instruction sheet. So I called 3 different dealers, 2 of them had the kit for 1.99, and none of them had the KIT. Makes sense I guess, their techs are not gonna read the instruction sheet anyway, they will either use their manuals or wing it. SOOOOOOOOOO, I found the instruction sheet on the www, so I'm including for your pleasure, for 6.50 you can order the kit, or you can buy the washer and look at the enclosed instruction sheet I have here.
By the way, it also shows the part numbers for the kit and just the washer.

 

 

So whats the rider report on how the bike handled? Did the clunky front end go away?

 

Yep, I've done so much to the front end on this ride that I don't remember what a klunky front end feels like, lol. Anyrate, the washer/adjustment really is the key part of the klunkyness. The dive portion is more of oil/spring type of issue and the ricor intiminators deffinitely eliminatedthe bottoming/diving that is fairly common on these setups.
I've pretty much learned especially with suspension upgrades on these bikes, not one component fixes everything, but each upgrade fixed different handling snafu's associated with this bike, and as a whole, klunkyness, diving, bottoming out, sloppyness is a thing of the past now.