I am in the process of changing the fork seals on my F3, and I ran into a problem during disassembly of the 2nd fork. The first came apart smoothly, but this one is stuck trying to seperate the slider from the case. I have tried everything, and I can't figure out why it is stuck - my only guess is that the seal has rusted/welded itself to the race it is in, because the seal is not budging. I have tried slamming it a lot, putting pb blaster in it, heating the case up with a heat gun, boiling the PB blaster past the seal, etc. Right after slam them apart, the two pieces stick apart quite strongly, and I need to use a mallet to get them back apart. This leads me to believe that I am getting it stuck on the rubber of the seal itself. Also, the oil lock piece fell off of the damper inside, but that should not make any difference. I tried to get it apart for like 2 hours, but no luck. Any ideas/tips/etc? Thanks!

 

Bushing might have worn a small groove inside the fork. Only way I know of getting them apart is soft jaw vise then twist and pull.

 

yea i had that happen to mines, vice and twist took it out.... it almost unthreaded the screw

 

Ok thanks for the replies, i went at it again today, and after trying everything I could with a vice, this is what finally worked. I rigged it into the frame of my engine lift and used it for tension. I stretched it out to about the limit of the hydraulic lift (2 tons), and then heated the fork tube up as much as I could with my 1100 F heat gun. Then I hit it sideways with a mallet, while trying to pull it a bit harder, and it finally broke loose with a big bang. Turns out the seal was indeed pretty rusted on to the race, and it ended up warping the metal around the inside of the seal enough to pull the tube out.

Nothing else is damaged, although the fork tube is bent a bit right at the lower triple tee. I just got it, but the bike has been down in its past... I'm not too worried about it at the moment, I am using the bike as transportation while I'm at college (UW), and it will be parked on the street for at until next summer, so I'll leave it a POS for now. Long term plans are probably a 600RR front end swap, which I hear is pretty bolt-on once you have all the parts.

 

i know that this is a super old thread, but i just wanted to add the problem i experienced yesterday while trying to get my fork tube apart.

i tryed pulling them apart, nothing. put them in a vice and would pull with all my might, not a budge. torched the seals and still nothing.

the way i eventually got them apart.....small flat head screwdriver and a hammer to tap the screw driver between the metal ring in the fork seal, and the lower fork tube. continuing all the way around bending the seal away from the lower fork tube. after the seal looks completely trashed.....re-torch! after that you can stick the screwdriver back in and actually pry the seal out.
that still wasn't what was holding the tubes together tho. after getting the washer out. still wouldnt come apart. SO. i pulled the slider tube out as far as it would go, and continued to beat the snot out of it with a rubber mallet. "walking" the upper bushing out of the lower tube. after finally getting them apart. i realized what had happened....

while trying to pull the forks apart in the traditional manner....the upper bushing had slid halfway overtop of the bushing that seats into the slider tube, which caused the upper bushing to be bigger than it was supposed to. with the upper bushing not being its normal, relaxed self...it WOULD NOT FIT through the lower fork tube hole....

SO, LESSON LEARNED. if you are pulling and pulling and pulling and NOTHING!? your bushing are probably shot and the are over lapping each other, not allowing you to pull them apart....

time to get first fork apart? bout 2.5 hours.
once i figured out a process, the time to get the second apart? about 15 mins.....


hope this helps someone

 

Thanks for the added information based on your experiences. So, what process did you use on the second tube that allowed it to not happen again ? Any photo's of what you did ? Which specific items are you referring to ?

 

well when i was trying to separate the slide tube and the fork tube, it wouldn't come apart at all. the second fork didn't come apart easier, just once i knew what was happening, i knew how to attack it....so it knocked right out.

basically while trying to pop them apart, bushing 9 slid underneath bushing 8. making it so bushing 8 was too big to separate the fork....

 

I have come across this several times myself. Was the oil seal rusted when you finally got it out? My guess as to what happens is that the oil seal rusts and expands which kind of "locks" it in place. When banging the tubes apart, the seal isn't driven out like it should. Being how the seal isn't giving, the bushing 8 is then driven under bushing 9 and leads to a whole new problem.

 

one of them had rusted oil. the other's oil was fine, kinda crazy