Wombat Fork Caution

[Droptarotter]

I had a stiction problem upon returning from HD14 on the front forks of my Wombat. I had the front wheel off of the bike for transport, re-installed it once I got home.........a couple of days later I go for a ride and notice something odd with the front forks.

The forks would only compress a couple of inches, then stay compressed until I yanked them up.

To diagnose properly I pulled off the front wheel and took the top cap off both forks. The left fork travelled all the way up no problem. The right fork only compressed a couple of inches and then stuck!
Time for disassembly of the right fork.

Now I be a lot of you old timers have already figured out what I did wrong.......as I am sure I am not the first one to create this problem.......so to let others know how dumb I can be at times and save someone else the hassle of repairing the forks............here is what I did;

I used too long of a bolt, or forgot a washer, that attaches the brake stay arm to the right front fork.

What this did was dent the fork wall and create a spot where the fork would stick. The bolt I used was only a couple of MM's longer than a stock bolt, but just enough to put pressure on the fork leg and dent it.

My 40 year old forks came apart easy enough.....all the parts looked ok and undamaged.....I could insert the inner tube and see that it stopped exactly where the brake stay mounts.

I used a brake cylinder hone to run a few passes inside the slider tube and that was enough to give me a nicely sliding fork with no more stiction.

Re-installed the fork with fresh oil and now all is well!

Moral of the story is;

Pay attention to the length of any bolts you are using on your lower fork legs!!

Cheers

[rough rider]

Wow, good to know. I could have easily done this myself in the past rebuilding my forks glad you got it fixed. Richard

[BrianZ]

This is a good piece of information!

If anyone is unsure of the correct length, it is "encoded" into the part number. For example a (10)0810 bolt has a threaded portion 10mm long and the (10)0812 bolt has a threaded portion 12mm long. If you go by the parts list and measure the length of the bolts you can't go wrong.

Another option it to thread the bolt in by hand and see where it bottoms out. If it bottoms out with with the threaded portion still visible, the bolt is too long.

Brian