Hi,

I'm replacing the seals on my forks and have done the first part of the job. I now have two fork legs looking like exploded diagrams in the garage. Next weekend I'll be putting them back together, and I've got a couple of questions:

How do you tighten the Allen bolt that holds the damper rod to the bottom of the fork? I was expecting to be able to use an Allen key with a really long extension right down the fork to stop the damper rod spinning, but the top of the damper rod has not got a socket in the top of it. I was planning to either jam a broomstick down the fork into the top of the damper, or put it all back together (- fork oil) and back on the bike, then get my dad to sit on the handlebars to compress the forks while I torque them up. Would either of these work?

Secondly, on my forks, the washers that sit just beneath the oil seals on my forks are concave - it looks like they were cut out of the side of a funnel. Is this normal, or did I knacker them as I used the inside bit of the fork to pull the old seals out like a slide hammer?

Many thanks,
Ralph

(p.s. My learnings so far: When removing the dust seals, there is a metal ring bound to the outside of the seal that sits on top of the fork lower. To remove the seal, drive this ring upwards off the fork lower. It wasn't obvious to me, and now I need to wait a week for new dust seals before I can put it all back together!)