Post by I Heard A Rukus on Nov 13, 2006 1:14:39 GMT -5
I was tinkering tonight and got around to re-building my headset and pulling my forks off to double check everything. I then realized that I had a spare set of forks to mess with and maybe I'd look into stiffening them up a tad. The following is a short how-to:
First lift the front wheel of your Ruckus off the ground. Then remove the front wheel using a 12mm and a 17mm. Then remove the four 12mm bolts holding your front forks on, they should slide right out, you might have to wiggle a bit. Now, you will need standard tools, one kinda special one (snap ring pliers), and new grease for your forks.
Once you have the forks off gently pry the rubber dust cover from the top of the fork. Then with a flat head or some Q-Tips remove all the grease down in the fork (this is so you can see the snap ring).
Now this part is really no fun, but maybe it was just the set up of my pliers, remove the snap ring. I had to get a goofy angle on my pliers to get them to go down in there but I eventually got the ring out of it's groove. You can pry it out with a flat head once you get to that point. OK all torn down you should have a pile of greasy parts:
Now I had spare parts, you are going to want to go out and get part number 8 in advance, as this is what I added to my forks. Depending on how you want to do this you should get 2, I don't like unbalanced forks.
Basically you are going to add a spring to your stock forks, these only cost $5 each so this is by far the easiest and cheapest way to beef up the stock forks. You are going to insert part 8 in the black fork tube directly behind part 5. Now what you just did is going to add to the overall length of the springs and parts in your forks and cut your travel down to about an inch, I know I did this. SO we have to shorten something and make room for the extra spring. If you take part number 12 (the ribbed thing) and cut 5/8" off of it you'll be golden and back up to the normal 2"ish of travel. Also, I cut down part number 6 so that my forks wouldn't bottom on that dorky little bumper so soon.
The top part is the shattered lower slider from the '03 forks that were in the accident, the neat part on the left is the bump stop that I cut 1/3 (edit) off of, and the parts to the right are the number 12 part before cutting, and then showing how much I cut off. The top of part 12 is raised, you want to make sure that you cut the 5/8" off the bottom. OK, now to put it all back together, make sure that you cleaned off any nasty grease and applied new stuff, and put all the pieces in the right order (adding spring 8 after spring 5). You want to make sure that you have everything except the dust cover on, (especially the retainer, because we get to put it back on now. Check out this little trick:
Neat huh? Works great, now put the snap ring back on, tap it in there and make darn sure it's in the groove all the way around, fill the top with new grease, and install the dust cover.
Rinse, lather, repeat for other side. And then installation of the forks is the opposite of removal!
RESULTS:
Rides like a Caddy, I can slam pot holes and bumps now, plus it raised the front end. Check out all the chrome showing now:
We're at 14 1/8" from the top of the fork to the center of the axle, NOT BAD (can someone measure a stock one for me?) I never expected this to really raise the front end that much, but it looks wicked!
All for $10 and some time. Enjoy
KP
First lift the front wheel of your Ruckus off the ground. Then remove the front wheel using a 12mm and a 17mm. Then remove the four 12mm bolts holding your front forks on, they should slide right out, you might have to wiggle a bit. Now, you will need standard tools, one kinda special one (snap ring pliers), and new grease for your forks.
Once you have the forks off gently pry the rubber dust cover from the top of the fork. Then with a flat head or some Q-Tips remove all the grease down in the fork (this is so you can see the snap ring).
Now this part is really no fun, but maybe it was just the set up of my pliers, remove the snap ring. I had to get a goofy angle on my pliers to get them to go down in there but I eventually got the ring out of it's groove. You can pry it out with a flat head once you get to that point. OK all torn down you should have a pile of greasy parts:
Now I had spare parts, you are going to want to go out and get part number 8 in advance, as this is what I added to my forks. Depending on how you want to do this you should get 2, I don't like unbalanced forks.
Basically you are going to add a spring to your stock forks, these only cost $5 each so this is by far the easiest and cheapest way to beef up the stock forks. You are going to insert part 8 in the black fork tube directly behind part 5. Now what you just did is going to add to the overall length of the springs and parts in your forks and cut your travel down to about an inch, I know I did this. SO we have to shorten something and make room for the extra spring. If you take part number 12 (the ribbed thing) and cut 5/8" off of it you'll be golden and back up to the normal 2"ish of travel. Also, I cut down part number 6 so that my forks wouldn't bottom on that dorky little bumper so soon.
The top part is the shattered lower slider from the '03 forks that were in the accident, the neat part on the left is the bump stop that I cut 1/3 (edit) off of, and the parts to the right are the number 12 part before cutting, and then showing how much I cut off. The top of part 12 is raised, you want to make sure that you cut the 5/8" off the bottom. OK, now to put it all back together, make sure that you cleaned off any nasty grease and applied new stuff, and put all the pieces in the right order (adding spring 8 after spring 5). You want to make sure that you have everything except the dust cover on, (especially the retainer, because we get to put it back on now. Check out this little trick:
Neat huh? Works great, now put the snap ring back on, tap it in there and make darn sure it's in the groove all the way around, fill the top with new grease, and install the dust cover.
Rinse, lather, repeat for other side. And then installation of the forks is the opposite of removal!
RESULTS:
Rides like a Caddy, I can slam pot holes and bumps now, plus it raised the front end. Check out all the chrome showing now:
We're at 14 1/8" from the top of the fork to the center of the axle, NOT BAD (can someone measure a stock one for me?) I never expected this to really raise the front end that much, but it looks wicked!
All for $10 and some time. Enjoy
KP