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42 Page – PDF Download – Complete Series – Suzuki GS1100E Project
“Suzuki GS1000 Fork Rebuild
Bob Berry watches Richard Bellamy of the Market Harborough Bike Centre strip and rebuild the forks from the Suzuki featured in the last issue. Pictures by Doug Millhouse.
My bike may have been featured in the last issue but we have not had the chance to run this strip and rebuild necessary when the forks seals had to be replaced last year.
That was necessary simply because the for legs were pitted so they had been sent to Frank Bolton’s hard chrome plating company in Newark to be stripped of their exterior, re-chromed and machined back to size at a cost of £75 including VAT and postage.
Meanwhile, the bottom sliders were being liberated of their black paint and polished at a local factory by ‘a friend of a friend’ (cost £20); while the internals remained with Richard until the bits all came together.
When the day came to put them back together – then strip and rebuild one of them for this feature – a snag developed. One of the hollow fork legs had received a knock in the post and the rim at the top, inside of which sits the fork seal was slightly flattened on one side. Richard explained that the seal could have been pushed past but would have been damaged in the process.
Panic measures included machining out the inside of the rim but Richard heated the relatively soft metal and gently forced the flat outwards with the end of a tool he found in the workshop. “It was a round plastic handle just the right size to ease into the stem and make it round,” he said. Ingenious.
My 1980 GS1000E was fitted with air forks very similar to those on other bikes of the period so this rebuild could be used for most other models with air forks…”
42 Page – PDF Download – Complete Series – Suzuki GS1100E Project
