80 GS1100 Fork Rebuild Question

[Guest]

Well, I rebuilt my forks in early 90's. I used the dowel trick to break them apart. I tried it again but this time my dowel was tapered too small. I damaged the pin that holds the tubing that rides on the damper adjuster.

My question: Does anybody know which hole the pin is suppose to be inserted in? There are two possibilities. the lower hole seems to make more sense because it matches the pin diameter on both sides. The set of holes that are higher on the tubing would work (one hole matches the pin and the other is slightly bigger). In fact, it looks like that's where one of them was positioned from my last rebuild (I could have been wrong 20 years ago though).

I have two service manuals and neither show this in detail...

[bluehwy]

Okay, finally got enough time to study it thoroughly. I've got it figured out. If anyone is interested I can post pictures.

I know I'm not the only one as I saw a similar post on Oldschoolsuzuki's forum from a year ago.

[mrbill5491]

The pin is suppose to float in that do hicky, lol, Took me awhile to figure it out until I got another set of 1100 forks and took them apart to see what gives. I got some pics somewhere. I'll have to dig around tonite.

[bluehwy]

Hey, MrBill, so, basically the damage I caused with a modified dowel technique was to the pin. My dowel was tapered too much and pushed down onto the tubing. I bought used bent forks to get the internal parts (could've gotten away with just buying roll/pinch pins from the auto parts store as only the pins were damaged).

Of two pairs (4 forks) only one tubing stayed connected by the pin during removal of damper adjuster (the one that stayed together I later figured out was pinned in the wrong hole).

So, as there are no detailed diagrams in existence of the damper adjuster, I studied over the construction keeping the function in mind. As all of you are aware, the tubing is used for the restriction of fork oil flow into the damper rod. It was when I put this together I was able to understand which hole the pin belonged in.

There are 4 holes in the tubing's circumference just upward of center. Each hole gets progressively bigger. These holes restrict the fluid at different rates corresponding with the 4 positions in the dampening adjustment. When assembled, these holes will line up with the hole in the damper rod. Therefore, the pin has to go in the only other two holes near the bottom of the tubing.

I overlooked this somewhat obvious assembly because the only one that stayed in tact during dis-assembly had the pin in one of the larger fluid holes across to the smallest fluid hole. Fitting the adjuster into the damper rod this way made it apparent--the fluid holes didn't line up... moreover, the tubing was attached upside down.

Here is a picture (upload in a moment) of the improper location I found it in and a picture of how they should line up:

[bluehwy]

Improper placement:

[bluehwy]

Proper alignment:

[bluehwy]

What made matters worse, one of the four tubing pieces was defective. It only had three holes. It was missing the hole for the maximum fluid flow. Also, the three holes that were there did not line up with the pin holes like the other three pieces.