Over the winter, my VN750 popped a fork seal and was leaking stinky
fork oil all over it's spot in the garage. But what the hell... I have
the Nomad and repairing the VN750 can wait until I get around to it.
Well, as the fates would have it I dropped the Nomad off at my shop for
an engine pull to repair the engine issues that the former owner did to
it and with some nice spots in the day I wanted to go riding... But
NO!!! I was planning on not being without the Nomad until the end of the
season, so the VN750 fork seal repair could wait... So a few days ago, I
get a call from my mechanic telling me that he has an open spot in his
schedule and can do the engine work I need and have to bring it in ASAP
so he can get it back to me within the week... So I bring it in and
figure that I can go a week without riding... Boy was I wrong... I got
the itch within 1 hour of dropping off the RedDog...
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Believe it or not, this state of disrepair only took about 15 minutes to
accomplish. Everything came apart easy like the bike wanted to be
fixed...
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My wife could not look at the VN750 in this condition. She said
that it broke her heart to see Black Betty in this condition...
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So, with the RedDog in the shop, I got a hold of all the parts to do
a fork-seal replacement and called my friend Chad for some advice and
help. You see, I'm a tinkerer where Chad is actually a certified
mechanic. So he came over and we went to work. I took the
front end apart the night before so that we would not have to waste
time.
We got the job done within 4 hours and am now awaiting on brake pads
which I will pick up tomorrow. While working on putting everything back
together, I fixed some past issues that were waiting and cleaned up some
areas that I could not get to with the windshield on. Tomorrow the
brakes will be installed and I will go for a late night ride. I will
have to readjust the clutch and brake levers as well as the handlebars
as I am now accustomed to the position that the Nomad has and will have
to get the Vn750's controls to a near happy medium.
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The headlight bucket is apart because I had to remove some of
the wiring that I had when the speakers were on the bike
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Both Chad and I have heard that when messing with the forks, it
is unwise to loosen both forks as it can affect alignment.
So we did one fork, then reinstalled it and removed the other
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With the left fork done, we now are removing the right
fork. The top bolt on the triple tree is a 12mm and the
bottom bolt is a 14mm. Make sure that you are holding on
to the fork as when you loosen the bolts, it will come free
quickly.
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One thing to also keep in mind... Make sure that the bike
is supported by a jack as you do not want her pitching
forward. I actually heard of someone doing this...
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Chad getting ready to drain the oil from the fork
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If your forks are older, they might have a pressure fitting. If
so, bleed the pressure out or you will have oil shoot all over when you
release the lower drain plug
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The drain plug on the bottom of the fork. Make sure that you have
a oil pan or something to drain into. If you have a pressure
fitting on our forks, press it in so that you will release any vacuums
to help in draining the fork
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Using an allen key to loosten the bolt holding the guts in place.
Have a pipe ready in case it doesn't want to break free. One of my
forks required a little tap with a hammer to break and the other went
easy
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The top of the fork... This was a real mutha to get off if you
don't know how. We used a 13mm socket with an extention to press
down on the cap while Chad slipped the C-ring off with a small screw
driver. Notice the C-ring hooked in my index finger. Keep
your hand on the top of the fork when doing this because the pressure
from the spring could send the whole top flying into a dusty dirty
corner of the garage never to be seen again.
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The spacer from the forks. This one was modified and cut down when
I had my Progressive springs installed a few years ago
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The Progressive spring coming out of the tube. Keep in mind on a
Progressive spring, the tighter wound side should be on the top
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Pulling out the fork seal retainer clip with a small flat blade
screwdriver
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With the tube out of the lower leg, a look down the lower leg.
Strongly recommend spraying brake cleaner down there to remove any
debris
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The guts of a VN750 fork!!!
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Putting the whole mess back together. Follow the directions in
your shop manual...
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Checking out and lubing the slider bushings
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Using a piece of 1-1/2" PVC pipe as a tool to press the fork spacer
into place
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Placing the fork seal in place. Make sure that you use some new
fork oil to make the surfaces slippery and to avoid damage to the new
seal
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Ready to seat the fork seal
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Using a second piece of 1-1/2" PVC (this one around 9" long)
to hammer the fork seal into place. If we ever have to do another
set of pipes, we will use a 16" piece of PVC so we can hit the top
of that one with a rubber mallet and not touch the fork tube
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Replacing the fork seal retainer clip
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Adding 12.4oz of new fork seal oil to the fork
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Putting it all back together. Make sure that you use new C-rings
from your dealer as the old ones might have gotten torn up during the
removal. We just followed the reverse on this one to get the
C-ring back into place. This was a two-person job all the
way. With me using my weight to press down on the cap using 13mm
socket and an extension, Chad pressed the C-ring back into place.
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With the front end all put back together with the exception of the
brakes which were replaced the following day.
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So, I've learned a lesson here. Even when one has two bikes, to
avoid being bike-less one has to repair the down bike ASAP or risk not
being able to ride when one desires... But even with one bike in the
shop and the other awaiting brake pads, my itch is kinda scratched.
Wrenching is almost as good as riding... Almost.
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