Question about forks installation

[spock]

Hello everybody

I am planning on a bit of DIY stuff, remove the forks to install new springs, change the oil and putting back together again.

I would just want to hear from you recommendations about the forks reinstallation, I know I have to check for the position on the triple clamp (same height), but what about putting the forks on the proper angle, I mean having the forks properly pointing to the front and none of them facing to the inside or outside of the front axle.

Any recommendation about this? is there any mark to follow?

Thanks a lot in advance and excuse my poor technical english

 

[Norbert]

Hello everybody

I am planning on a bit of DIY stuff, remove the forks to install new springs, change the oil and putting back together again.

I would just want to hear from you recommendations about the forks reinstallation, I know I have to check for the position on the triple clamp (same height), but what about putting the forks on the proper angle, I mean having the forks properly pointing to the front and none of them facing to the inside or outside of the front axle.

Any recommendation about this? is there any mark to follow?

Thanks a lot in advance and excuse my poor technical english

When you put the axle in , they will self-align.

Alignment steps:
1) put forks, axle and wheel in. tighten everything hand tight because they need to be able to move around and align. you dont want it real loose of course since you dont want the bike to topple over.
2) take bike off front stand and center stand
3) loosen everything but the lower triple clamp (which is still at hand tight)
4) straddle the bike, hold front brake in or move front wheel towards a wall.
5) bounce front end up and down +6 times
6) have a friend torque everything down while holding the front end still.

 

[spock]

Thanks a lot buddy of the hilarious nickname

 

[Norbert]

Thanks a lot buddy of the hilarious nickname

no problemo.
if you are raising the forks, it helps to have a digital caliper, like this:
6" Digital Caliper

if they have to be level with the top of the triple tree, well that's easy, just use a ruler or something.

what forks are you putting in?

 

[spock]

cool digital toy!

I'm not planning on changing the forks, just changing the springs for hyperpro progressive.

from some time ago I have noticed my bike's suspension is not behaving as good as I would like:

when I brake hard the front compresses more than before and I feel some vibration or something like that, not from side to side but definitely up and down, up and down.

on the rear I was perfectly ok with riding two up no luggage on 4 or 5, two up and luggage in 7 felt perfect, now for riding kind of comfortably two up with no luggage I have to put the preload on 6, and is far from perfect anyway, the bike bounces more than it should, here notice that we are not heavy, between the two with the usual gear approximately 308 pounds

Actually I made an experiment with my brother's in law fz6, both bikes with the same preload and the same fork oil, both with original OEM suspension, his 21000+ miles mine 27000+ miles, when I press my bike seat or sit on it it sags way more, immediately noticeable. Notice here that I have ridden rugger terrains than him and with more weight due to the luggage.

since I use the bike for different purposes and scenarios:
- spirited rides solo, two up no luggage with the girl
- two up with my father (more slowly) ... yes you read well, with my father, here is pretty common to ride with a guy behind, may sound strange for you there at the states but here is not a problem at all jeje
- sometimes riding in town
- two up and full luggage
- also the roads here sometimes are not perfect since there are lot of every sort of bumps and potholes
- I can't spend a fortune on sophisticated ohlins or similar setups
- I don't have track days
- I don't want to be adjusting lot of settings everytime I go for a ride

so I have thought in the "self adaptative" hyper pro progressive springs according to how I use the bike and what I've read from several people on several forums.

and this year I've started my incursion in the DIY stuff and I really like it, I'm a software engineer with a pretty hig