Stubborn forks - help!

Hi everyone! New here and glad to be here! I've been searching threads but haven't found an answer to this one so here we go. I bought an 81 Seca back in November and was instantly obsessed. It had 10k original miles on it due to being garaged most of its life, so since then I've been just slowly learning about it and doing work to get it up to speed. I'm taking a long trip in July so I need to make sure it's all good before then.

My most recent conundrum that I haven't been able to struggle through is: I'm trying to refill the fork oil but I can't seem to push hard enough on the metal core at the top of the forks in order to get at the little clip so the core will pop out. I got all excited that I was able to drain everything and now I'm stuck and very annoyed lol. I can't figure out if it's because I'm just not strong enough or if it's just an old bike being old and crusty, but like...I've had to PB Blaster a bunch of other stubborn fasteners on this bike and this doesn't look like that kind of problem. Am I misunderstanding the manual and doing something wrong??

 

Welcome to the form. You can try this. Jubilee clip should have a washer between it and the cartridge tool.






I have not tried it but might help you get the circlip out. And the tool allows you to release the spring easier. Hopefully the tool doesn't just pull the circlip up.

 

Puller is too small. But using the top yolk with a larger puller should work.

 

Loosen the pinch bolt on the top triple tree

 

Sometimes I forget the obvious

 

Sounds like it's seized. use heat, a brass drift and an big hammer to 'unseize' it. you may destroy any seal but meh..

 

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! I'll tackle it again and see what happens.

 

If you have the forks off the bike you can place a socket smaller than the circlip on the disc holding the spring and invert the forks and push down on each fork leg. That can free a stuck fork cap. Make sure socket is not against the circlip. If they are on the bike try the suggestions above.

 

With forks off bike. Put shock in vise use c clamp to compress spring, worked for me.