Hi,

Thanks in advance (I seem to be on here every second day!)

Went to do the fork seals/oil and install rick Oliver's upgrade kit to my 1991 nc30 (late forks). Unwound preload, loosened top, followed by pinch bolts, removed top circclip and slid out.

Haynes and rick (then say to loosen damper rod bolt. I am stuck here. No one seems to have an impact 6mm hex bit ( as Allen key and extension bar were getting nowhere), So made one from a cut off hex key and a couple of adapters for my impact socket. No luck and scared to try more in case I round the head. What should I do? Did as instructed with some tension while attempting to undo, and hit with a hammer to try break the locktite .

The bike has been sitting for 15 years, I suspect the seals may not have been done in the 10 before that, or if so it was probably once!!

loosening the damper bolts is easier when the forks have the springs still in them. you need to lean on them pretty hard with a lovely fitting allen key or socket..

I had this problem doing it this way-
so now i loosen the damper bolt first. I also mnake sure the preload is fully wound in so as much compression is on the spring as possible. The damper bolt only has a torque of 15N (or there abouts) but will have threadlock on it. If a numpty installed the damper rod bolt and over torqued it it may be a problem to get out.
I have had to drill them out before - but if you re-assmeble and wind in preload you may get lucky.
Also spray some carb cleaner onto the cap head it may help loosen the thread lock.

Forks are still assembled...okay will try wind the preload in. I did try loosening the bolt after I had removed the wheel, but probably too late

When you say socket - my hex socket isn't long enough/skinny enough - are there longer ones one can get that fit?

i had this problem,i used a single allen key with a spanner on the end,but luckily they werent all that tight,but had to drill em in the past as well!!

Get a rattle gun on them, they'll literally fall out.

Aha!!!wound in the preload and back to using my breaker bar and voila. Goes against the instructions which say to wind out the preload! Should change that!

...pity were heading into winter now and it was dark by the time I got home and got the bolts out!

they mean to wind out preload when taking the top caps of iirc.

Ahhh!!!haha good point. Lol. :-) all done and loving it! The oil in the forks was like grey sludge :-s

Icemaestro wrote:Ahhh!!!haha good point. Lol. :-) all done and loving it! The oil in the forks was like grey sludge :-s

did you change the fork bushes at the time? probably worn out if its that grey.