I just bought a you fix'em up 97 Dyna and the aluminum front fork legs are discolored and need to be refinished, either re polished or re chromed. I've decided to have them rechromed. I have the brakes, front wheel, headlight, speedometer, fender pulled and removed the drain plugs. Can someone in the know give me in numerical order what steps are left to remove the forks from the bike then remove the lower leg from the forks

 

Fixyourhog.com has a great video when replacing your forks. The service manual helps, but not as good as the visual you get with the video. For $20, you can't go wrong.

I'm assuming that you are going to install new seals/bushings once you have it pulled apart? If you've already removed the drain plugs, and drained the fluid, you'll want to loosen from the pinch bolts and pull the forks off.

Once you do that set the legs on a table, secure the legs vertically, and remove the fork caps from the top. Keep in mind that these are under pressure, and you might want to have a rag or something to help damper the energy. Once you take the fork caps off, remove the springs. Then you want to get a hammer and a punch, and lightly tap on the decorative fork covers (protects the dust shield), and pop them off. Be careful not to ding or scratch them. You'll then see the dust cover and you'll want to pry that out as well. Look into the crevice and you'll see a circlip and fork seal. Pry out the circlip. Do the same to the other leg.

Once your done with that, you'll want to remove the 6mm allen bolt at the bottom of each leg. This is easy to strip, so make sure that you are careful. I stripped mine and had to go through hell in order to get it out. You'll need a long 6mm allen to get it out, as its deeply recessed. This connects the fork slider internals to the leg, so it will disconnect the two when the bolt comes out, so be careful not to let it fall straight to the floor if you have the leg sitting vertically. You'll then grab both ends of the fork and slider, and pull apart. Takes a couple of tugs. You'll then see the internals come out (damper rod w/spring), hydrolock spacer, 2 bushings (leg and slider), convexed spacer, and of course your fork seal. You'll also of course then have your fork leg and slider in separate pieces. Repeat for the other leg.

I replaced all of the bushings and seals when I replaced mine. Make sure that you keep all of your pieces together and reinstall exactly as you took them out, especially the spring and convexed spacer.

Hope that helps. This was what I did for a 2002 Dyna Lowrider. May slightly vary from your year/model, but should give you a baseline. Good luck!

 

Re assemble the forks on a towel on the floor to make it easier to compress the springs, and cap it up.

Search on polished forks. Check out the sticky on Under 50 fixes. It's in there...Polishing the forks is a nice alternative. I was suprised with the results. It is a bit of work. Basically stripping the paint, progressive sandings w/ 600+ grit paper, and polishing with a buffing wheel and polishing compound.

 

CMVSM, thanks sooo much, your just the guy I'm looking for. Is there a chance we can talk via email just in case I have additional problems as I undertake this job? My email is ggoakley@rochester.rr.com I promise not to bother you too much, thanks again, Garry

 

Hi CMVSM, thats JUST the info I'm looking for. Would you mind if we can communicate in the future by email if I should have any questions as I am doing this job? I promise not to bother you TOO much. My email is ggoakley@rochester.rr.com
Thanks sooo much
Garry

 

Sure...shoot me a PM if you have any questions. I do still advise that you get the video and a service manual. Will help out tremendously for this job and the next.

 

Hey CMVSM, I'm brand new at this forum so I haven't quite got it figured out yet so forgive me if I do something wrong. My email address is flyer6440@rochester.rr.com and if you don't want to put your email on here would you send it to me email? So far all is going well with the forks, Their of the bike now I just need to remove the fork plugs etc. This is my winter project so I just do a little each day.. No rush. Thanks again for you offer to help, Garry

 

Here's a link to a thread on how to polish the lower fork legs on the bike:

Polished lower sliders


Use the Search this forum button , type "front forks" and you'll find tons of good info on this subject....

Check out this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JupVkhN92k