Decided to take a break from cleaning stuff and do a bit of tinkering. The forks got the short straw.
I couldn’t decide whether to go for a full dismantle and check or not. They look OK, they seem OK. Slight pitting high up but nothing round the seals and the seals seem to hold the oil in. Hmm…..
Opted for a halfway house which was to change the fork oil and see what it looked like.
Followed the Haynes manual steps for oil replacement (don’t you just love those manuals). Started with the right hand fork. Removed the drain plug. Undid the top nut and drained the oil out. Used a syringe for measuring hardener for building glass-fibre canoes to measure out the exact quantity of new oil. Replaced the drain plug with new sealing washer. I decided to follow the book exactly and used Automatic Transmission Fluid for fork oil instead of any hi-tech fancy stuff. Put the top nut back on and moved onto the left fork. This is easy!
Went to undo the drain plug on the left hand fork and it came out awfully easy. In fact extremely easy. Held in with a dab of bathroom sealant. The threads in the fork had been completely stripped. Undid the top nut and drained out the remaining oil.
Need to have a think about this little problem. Should I Helicoil it or replace the fork body?
While I was pondering this, decided to take the engine end sprocket cover off and give it a good clean as it was very dirty and covered in old chain grease. This gave me a reminder of why you need to check everything on a bike. The sprocket bolts were loose. Wouldn’t have gone very far before it would have parted company. There is always a big temptation to get it running and see how it rides but nothing should be taken for granted on an old bike.
This prompted me to take the long road with the forks and strip them down and rebuild. If the drain plug has been stuck back in with sealant what else has not been done correctly? That will be in another post after payday!
Another lesson learned as they say.