So, knew I had to replace the fork seals. When draining the old oil I noticed how awfully nasty it looked. I then noticed a slight clicky noise when shaking the one fork so I decided to completely break them down, clean, inspect and repair where necessary. Ended up replacing the bushings in the one "noisy" fork and now all is well. Here's the fun.
The trick to these forks is to remove the top caps, drain all of the fluid and remove the springs. Then you fill the tubes completely with ATF to the threads on the top. Mind you, please make sure that you extend the tubes all of the way before filling. If you don't do that, you get nowhere in the next step. Put the top cap on the tube and plug the air tube hole with a bolt. Remove the dust cap, the snap ring under that and the washer under that, exposing the seal.
Place the fork into a bar clamp as shown and compress. This will raise the seal right up out of it's seat.
The seal will raise up to the point where all of the fluid will ooze out from around it. This is why I had everything suspended above a bucket.
This is where some fun starts. You can get a thin bladed flat head down next to the seal and start gently prying out in alternating positions. Once you get a full side of the seal exposed, beat the screw driver into the side of the seal like it owes you money. Once you have it in there good you can use this leverage along with another flat blade to work around the edges to walk the seal out.
Once you have that free, remove it and the backup ring below it.
Drain everything again and remove the allen head bolt in the bottom of the fork. An impact gun may be required on lowest setting. Once you have the bolt out you can remove the center rod by using a gentle slide hammer action. You can then turn the inner tube upside down and tap it on the floor with something padded as to not mess it up. This will slide the piston out of the rod. Clean everything out with brake clean.
This is the inner piston assembly with ring and rebound spring.
Once you put the piston back into the inner tube it will come out only so far before the rebound spring catches.
Push the piston back in flush at the bottom. Notice the new lower bushing installed.
Place the inner tub back down into the bottom outer fork tube. The narrowed end of that piston is threaded and lines up with the hole in the bottom of the tube.
Replace the bolt with loc-tite and torque to specs.
In order to keep everything from spinning when torquing the bolt I turned the tube upside down and inserted this broom handle into it. Pressed down in order to hold everything inside by pressure while using the ratchet.
Reinsert the top bushing, back-up ring, seal, washer, snap ring and dust seal. Seat the bushing and the seal individually using a PVC pipe sanded slightly to fit the area and a dead blow hammer.
