special fork tool

[cowboyup3371]

Will one of the plastic broom handles work or will they just bend too easily? What about a handle off a shovel or will that be too thick?

[Jason the terminator]

My only advice is watch the thickness and straightness of the handle. I had used the tapered end of a broken snow shovel which was just a little thicker than a broom stick. It got stuck in the fork tube do to the extra width and the small amount it was warped. I was able to get it out but it took some work. A wood broom stick works perfectly and that is what I will stick with.

[guitargeek]

I used some 1/2" extensions with a reversed 5/8" plug socket on the end, worked like a charm. I'd tried the broom handle trick, compressing the spring, impact driver, all to no avail.

[SVSooke]

There must be something special about everyone's forks. I've done a couple of sets of GS forks and a set of GSX-R forks. I never held the dampers with anything. Just pulled the bolt out of the bottom of the forks easy as pie. Reassembled without holding them too.

As I stated erlier done a few 83 750 forks with no trouble.Tried the 1000 forks yesterday,got a problem.Going to hit it with the impact gun first.If no go with that I'll try the plug socket trick.Guess my luck ran out

The hex on the bottom of the typical spark plug socket is 19mm. If you have some long 3/8" ratchet extensions it's an easy matter to stick the extension into the socket backwards and then stick the socket down into the forks to hold the damping rod. You need about 18" of extensions or so, although I haven't measured.

Salty_Monk (Dan) taught me this trick and it works great.

Edit:The reverse plug socket worked a treat! Thanks to Chuck,your triple tip worked great to.