Having sold my Black and Gold SRX earlier in the year to fund the Triumph Speed400 (which caused a lot of interest at the Stafford Show), I thought I would have recovered from the motorcyclist's disease "Gottohaveanotherone". But I was so wrong! I saw that "returning Simon" had an electric start one that he bought for spares would be up for sale due to relocation. I duly went to see it and purchased it a couple of days later. The bike seems generally complete and unmolested but there are a few bits I will have to get from Japan.
First job I had to do was remove the front forks as one of them was seized, (the bike having been stood for 7 years).
The unseized fork leg came apart quite readily, but you do need an extended tool to hold the piston whilst undoing the fine thread bolt at the base.
The seized one was a different ball game altogether. I undid the bottom bolt, but the slider and outer leg would not part company. Many attempts were tried and at one point 3 of us were on it trying to separate them. Eventually I had to compress the fork leg as tight as possible, hold the chrome slider in the 3jaw chuck on my lathe at work, insert a revolving centre and carefully machine the offending oil seal that was preventing disassembly. It finally succumbed after about 2 hours work in total trying to pull it apart.
I will need to get the sliding legs re hard chromed, new seals and dust shields, new spacer washers and fixed top bushes. These are split bushes and readily available. However the bottom bushes do not seem to be available at all so I will have to machine new ones possibly from Aluminium Bronze. These are split ones also and will be a bit more awkward to make. Enclosing (hopefully) a couple of pics.
Onwards and upwards!
