A bit of advice on forks, and most other parts of the bike really.

Many of you probably know better. I should have but got too excited to get it back together.

But when I did my Race Tech gold valves and spring in my forks at the time I just put it back together and tightened the triple clamp bolts down good and tight and called it good.

I own a torque wrench, I have the shop manual in PDF form and know that they are only supposed to be about 24ft lbs if I remember right.
I screwed up. It is costing me about $400 for a new upper fork tube (and the teflon bushings inside) since being tight like that slightly crushed the fork tube and wore it out. Now the fork is all sloppy and wiggles back and forth on that side. Took it apart and sure enough there are wear pits where the triple clamp clamps it, and all that nice blue fork oil was dark metallic grey. Once you wear through that anodizing on the inside the aluminum starts wearing fast.

And yes I did notice it felt a hair tight when I hopped on it at first. But that went away right away and it felt fine...... For a bit. Fooled me into thinking it just needed a few cycles to get all settled or something. Keep in mind this was the first time I've worked on forks. So there was some NOOB going on there. (I've rebuilt engines and such just fine and done full upgraded drivetrain swaps in 4x4s and such no problem so I'm not a mechanical idiot, I was just being a mechanical idiot on my forks..... hehe)

So the lesson is. Check for specs and get out that torque wrench.
I learned mine.

 

Ouch! Expensive lesson.

 

Yup. I knew better that there was a spec for those bolts. For some reason I didn't think anything of it though.
The guy at the dealer even said "You wouldn't think those tubes are as thin and easy to crush as they are."

Note that in the end I'm not getting it from the dealer. OEM are about 2/3 the price from places like Bike Bandit and such.
(I do like to support the dealer though when I can. They are a smaller older dealer around since the 60's and have treated me well. Want them around as long as I ride Hondas)

 

It happens to the best of us. I put a new clutch in my bike and it ended up costing me quite a bit of money. After draining the oil and coolant I put coolant into the reservoir and not the actual radiator so I blew the enine on a positive side I decided that since the shop had the engine taken apart and had to replace the cylinder and heads I went with the 300 cc big bore kit with wiesco piston and head.

 

Sometimes breaking something ends up being just the thing you need to do an upgrade.

When I blew my fork seals from riding it a bit too hard I used the fact I was going to have the forks apart anyway as my excuse to do the Race Tech gold valve and spring.

Problem is....... Well we all know what the problem is. hehe

 

Haha exactly! I really need to do the front and rear suspension upgrade on my bike; will make offroading a lot more fun.

 

Youch! I know I didn't use a torque wrench when loosenening/re-tightening them after they got tweaked. Something else to worry about...

 

I actually need to go back and recheck mine. Had a wreck on a trail that tweaked the front end (Bars pointing one way, wheel pointing the other the upper and lower parts of the triple clamp were knocked out of alignment).
On the spot I got it all lined back up but just kind of "snugged them up good" the torque in them is only like 24 ft-lbs or so. So I figured that was close enough.
Rode straight as an arrow for the 3,000 miles home, I was on a cross country ride so it had to do. Blew out the seals on one side too so I guess I'll be taking it apart though before getting the torque wrench out......
And I bent the bars so I guess I'll be picking some new ones up as well.

Thing I love about this bike though. I have some serious moments of beating on it probably more than Honda figured it would be. But always rides nice. Proving to be a tough little machine.