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Ok, here's the story...
Last year, I was going to install a Race Tech Gold Valve while re-springing my forks. I was going to let the shop that I work at do it for me for a case of beer. They kind of shyed away from doing the valve due to the unfimiliarity with doing that kind of suspension work, so I returned it. The seals were replaced, and the springs were installed (although, the spacers were most likely cut too long, I will check by how much at the end of this build). This was pretty much good enough for last year. This year, my bike is going to be track only, and I am going to focus on racing. So I reordered the valve.
I thought pretty hard about bringing my forks to Pete at GMD, but I really wanted to do the work myself and learn about fork maintenence. I brought them back to my shop, but this time I was going to do all the work. Disassembly was easy. I took them apart and cleaned up everything real good, but since my valves, seals, and bushings didn't arrive that day, I was at a stopping point. The next day my stuff came in, and I called to get the proper shim stack and which size bleed hole I needed to drill. During my lunch, I watched the race tech video, and that seemed pretty easy.
The shop was open for another 2 and a half hours after I got off work last night, so I told my wife I was going to stay late to work on the forks. Here's where the fun really begins. I took the cartredge to the drill press to drill out the dimples holding the compression valve holder. No problems here. I push them in and remove the wire clip, but then when I try to pull them back out, they weren't budging. I tryed making a sort of slide hammer to get them out, but I didn't have long enough stroke to make any difference. I spent about an hour trying to figure this out. The directions made is seem so easy. Finally, I found some spacer in the machine shop that had an inner diameter larger then the holder, but smaller then the cartridge, so I was able to use that to make a puller.
With that behind me, I built the stack and assembled the compression valve. This was a lot easier then I thought, but the instructions don't completely identify every item. There didn't seem to be any other way to do it though, so I am confedent that it is correct. I then reassembled the cartridge. As I was finishing this, one of the guys came in turning off lights and checking the doors. I was like "holy crap, it's almost 9 already". So I packed everything up into a couple of bins and cleaned up for the night.
This morning, I came in early and started cleaning parts again getting ready to install the new seals and bushings. Out of all the sizes of seal drivers we had, the 43mm one was missing. You have got to be kidding me. 3 days into this project and I am still not finished. If it wasn't for the knowledge that I am gaining by doing this, there would be no question of where I would have taken these forks. If you just need to get the work done, save yourself the headache and take them to GMD.
Hopefully, I will find that seal driver and finish these things today.
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Originally Posted by Paul_E_D
