From: Marc J. Rosenbaum
A step-by-step set of notes from one installation.
Warning: this has been written by a new owner of a 2001 SV650, not an experienced mechanic. This took me about 5 hours, working slowly and taking notes and some photos. You should have the shop manual available in conjunction with these notes. The author takes no responsibility for the accuracy of these notes or your efforts on your bike.
I used the Suzuki shop manual, the instructions that came with the Racetech emulators and the Progressive fork springs, and an August 2001 article in Motorcycle Consumer News by Mark Barnes as references for this work.
Tools I used:
Motorcycle tie downs, small hydraulic jack, 3/8 ratchet drive, with 3 inch extension. 3/8 drive torque wrench. 8mm, 10mm, 12 mm, 14 mm and 17 mm sockets. 10 inch adjustable wrench. Pliers. Bench mounted vise. 6 mm socket hex, 8 mm tee handle hex wrench, and 5/32 inch hex wrench. Penlight flashlight. Ruler. Homemade dipstick. Table saw.
Disassembly (left is driver's left, right is driver's right)
1. Prep
I already had the fuel tank and seats off for other work but this is not necessary for the fork work.
a. Put the bike up on the centerstand (I previously installed an SW Motech stand) or shop stand. Lift the front end off the ground. I did this work indoors and screwed a large hook (used to hang bicycles, etc.) into the ceiling joist above and used a pair of ratcheting motorcycle tie downs to suspend the front end. I wrapped the webbing of one tie down underneath the steering head, and hooked both end hooks to one end hook of the other tie down, which was connected at the other end to the ceiling hook. Using the ratchet, I lifted the front end up off the floor. I also used a small hydraulic jack and a block of wood beneath the engine to provide a redundant form of support in case something failed.
2. Emulators
a. Set the emulators (FEGV S3801) to the proper preload now so you don't forget later in the excitement of re-assembly! Back off the adjuster bolt (5/32) until the spring has no load on it, then tighten the bolt to set the preload. Race-Tech suggests 2 full turns for a street rider and 4 full turns for a racer or a heavy rider. I set mine at 2 full turns. Tighten the locknut using blue locktite.
3. Remove the speed sensor wire clamp from the left fork leg (10mm).
4. Remove the brake line clamps from each fork leg (10 mm).
5. Remove the left and right brake calipers (14mm). Note: I also jammed a scrap of wood shingle between the brake pads, so I wouldn't in a brain failure moment squeeze the front brake lever and send my brake pistons shooting out of the caliper. Suspend the calipers out of harm’s way from the handlebars with bungee cords, taking care not to put any load on the brake lines.
6. Remove the front wheel axle pinch bolt (12mm) (right fork leg).
7. Remove the front axle (17 mm).
8. Remove the front wheel, carefully pulling the speed sensor out of the left side. Check the speed sensor for free rotation and then tie it up out of the way. Check the wheel bearings free rotation and side-to-side play.
9. Remove front fender — you’ll need an 8mm socket to pull the bolts. The bolts go through the fender to a clip on the inside of the fender which falls out when you pull the bolts. (Curiously, this clip has a triangle symbol stamped on it indicating which end faces the front, yet the clip appears to me to be symmetrical, so I couldn’t figure out why one end was the front.) If you’re thinking of installing a Fender Extender, available from Adventure Motogear, now would be a good time. You have to detach the speed sensor cable mount from the fender, it’s a plastic fitting that pushes into a hole in the top of the fender, I used pliers to compress it from the underside of the fender and nudge it out.
10. Loosen the upper triple clamp pinch bolts (6 mm hex.)
11. Loosen fork caps - do not remove! I don’t have a open end/box end wrench large enough to do this and a socket won’t fit so I used an adjustable wrench.
12. Loosen the lower triple clamp pinch bolts (12 mm). Hold the fork leg as you do this as they will fall out otherwise!
13. Remove the fork tubes. Slide them down and out of the triple clamps. The turn signal mounts will stay in place.
Forks
14. Remove fork caps, keeping downward pressure on them so they don’t pop out (these threads are aluminum and would be easy to strip.)
15. Remove the steel spacer, washer, and fork spring from each fork leg. This will be messy as they are oil covered.
16. Turn each fork leg upside down and drain the fork oil, pumping the fork to get all the oil out. The stock oil used by Suzuki is very thin. I got roughly the same amount from each leg, contrary to some people’s experience!
17. Here’s where it could get tricky. You need to remove the damper rod, which is bolted to the fork slider from the bottom. The bolt is a 8 mm hex head located in a recessed hole above where the axle goes through. You need a long 8mm hex wrench. I used a beefy Craftsman tee handle hex wrench. I mounted the fork leg in a vise between pieces of wood, clamping on the flat sides of the fork slider bottom. Race-Tech suggests using an air tool to break the bolt free, and giving the bolt a sharp rap to loosen it. I had no difficulty removing it with my 8mm tee handle hex wrench, but maybe my experience was the exception. Note: This bolt has a copper crush washer, which, not knowing it was there, I didn't replace, but I would get replacements if I tore the forks down again.
Once you break the bolt free, the damper rod may want to spin in the fork as you try to unscrew the bolt. Stick a wooden broom handle down into the fork leg to apply pressure to the damper rod while you back the bolt out.
18. Turn the fork upside down, and the damper rod and the rebound spring will fall out.
19. I put the fork caps back in part way to keep stuff from falling into the fork while I was doing other stuff.
20. Drill out the 4 existing compression damping holes near the bottom end of the damper rod to 5/16 inch, and add two more 5/16 inch holes so as to end up with 3 pairs total. Race-Tech suggests spacing each pair 90 degrees rotation from the previous pair, and a minimum of 7/16 inch vertically apart up and down the length of the rod. This is to not over-weaken the damper rod. I used a hand drill and mounted the damper rod in a vise between two blocks of wood, clamping only tight enough to keep the rod from moving. I step drilled each hole, starting with a small starter drill, and increasing drill diameter in three steps, and I used oil to make the drilling easier. Leave the small rebound damping hole near the top of the damper rod alone.
21. Chamfer and deburr the holes (I used a small rattail file for the inner edge of the holes, and a countersink to chamfer the outer edges.)
22. Clean all of the chips and junk out! You don't want this stuff in your forks!
Re-assembly of forks
23. Re-install damper rod and rebound spring, and tighten the damper rod retaining bolt. The manual suggests using thread locker on this bolt. Torque spec is 16.5 ft-lbs.
24. Drop the emulator into the fork tube, large end down, adjusting bolt up. Make certain it sits squarely on the top of the damper rod.
25. Add fork oil.
a. Compress the forks completely.
b. Carefully add fork oil (I used 20 weight, for a stiffer ride use a heavier weight) to the proper level, which is measured as distance from the top of the fork tube to the oil level. Race-Tech suggests 130 mm (5.1 inches); Progressive Suspension suggests a minimum of 140 mm (5.5 inches) with their springs, and that’s where I set mine. A homemade dipstick and a penlight help here. I made a crude dipstick out of a piece of wood and a nail to set the proper depth. Make a dipstick that you are sure you can't drop into the fork!
26. Replace fork internals.
a. Extend the fork leg fully and insert fork spring. I put the less heavily coiled end of the Progressive springs facing down, not what I wanted, but the more tightly coiled end wasn’t cut off very squarely and I wanted the best end resting on the emulator. It shouldn’t matter which end of the spring faces up (and if you use straight rate springs you won’t have to think about this at all!)
b. Insert washers — the Suzuki one that sits on top of the fork spring, and the one you will use on top of the new spacer you’re going to make. Progressive include two new washers in my fork spring kit — and they were each a different thickness, so I got to make up a different length spacer for each leg!
27. Now you need to calculate the length of the new spacer. I got some Schedule 40 one inch PVC pipe to make my spacers. Measure from the top of the fork tube to the top of the washers inside — in mine, with the emulators, Progressive springs, and both washers, the distance was 1.81 inches. The fork cap extends down into the fork tube about 0.70 inch, so that must be subtracted from the distance measured. Finally, you have to decide how much preload you want — I aimed for 20 mm (0.79 inch), based on Racetech’s recommendation. So the length of my spacer was: 1.81 — 0.70 + 0.79 = 1.90 inches.
28. I cut my PVC spacers on my table saw because that assured me of a square cut on the end. You could use a pipe cutter, my plumbing cutter was too small to handle the 1.3 inch diameter. Clean the chips out carefully and smooth the edges with some sandpaper.
29. Fish out the top washer and insert the new spacer, then place the washer on top. The fork cap will bear on the washer. The stack of fork internals will probably protrude slightly above the top of the fork tube. Now re-install the fork caps. Take care not to strip or cross-thread the delicate aluminum threads! Put some clean fork oil on the O-ring. You’ll need to push down hard on the cap as you start the threads. You will not be able to tighten these all the way until the forks are back in the triple clamps.
30. Re-install the forks into the triple clamps. (Now is the time to slip your fork protectors on — I used the SRC Mudskins, which are neoprene tubes that zip tie to the fork slider top. They’re black, and look good to my eye, and will protect the fork tubes from dings that will hasten the demise of the seals.) First push them partway up, to a point where the top of the fork is not within a triple clamp — because you can’t torque the fork caps properly if the threaded portion of the tube is being clamped. I set the top of mine about 1/3 of the way up between the bottom and top triples, and clamped the fork leg with the bottom triple clamp bolts enough to torque the fork caps to the proper setting (16.5 ft-lbs.)
31. Now push tubes up to the proper level — where the top of the fork tube is 3mm above the top triple clamp. Torque all the triple clamp pinch bolts to 16.5 ft-lbs.
32. Re-install the front fender, taking care to remember the directional aspect of the inside clips. Re-install the speed sensor cable clip to the fender.
33. Re-install the front wheel.
a. Grease and insert the axle from left side, taking care to line up the sleeve that goes into the fork and the piece that presses against the wheel bearing. On the other side, grease and insert the speed sensor so that the lugs fit the wheel side driver properly, and locate the sensor properly in relation to the tang on the fork slider that prevents its rotation.
b. Insert and tighten axle bolt (47 ft-lbs.)
c. Tighten the axle pinch bolt (16.5 ft-lbs.)
The manual says to bounce the forks a few times before tightening the axle and pinch bolt — you can’t do this yet if the bike is up in the air, so remember to do it when you take it down again.
34. Re-install the brake calipers.
a. Insert and tighten bolts (28 ft-lbs). Check proper brake operation.
35. Take bike down off of supports.
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| Stock forks disassembled (but damper rod *has* been drilled) |
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| Close-up of damper rod |
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| Suspending the SV with no forks |
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| Close-up of above, note brake calipers suspended with bungees |
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| Forks before re-assembly with Emulator, Progressive Springs, washers, and new spacer. |
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| Re-assembled forks with SRC Mudskins |
