KZ900 fork damper removal

I'm trying to take my KZ900 forks apart and it hasn't been a success so far.

First I tried the sharpened broomstick. That didn't work.

Next I tried the Gator Grip socket. It's a little too wide and won't fit down the fork tube. This has me wondering why, since other guys have done it.

Next, I took a 1" pipe and shaped it into a four sided face, like how some suggest for the broomstick. That doesn't work either.

Looking down into the tube, the bottom just looks round. Nothing to catch onto easily.

Well tomorrow I'll have access to an air ratchet and I'll give that a try, with the forks buttoned up so that the springs put some pressure on the tubes.

If anybody else has experience with this, please share.

Mine are round too. Here's what I made to hold them........

kzrider.com/forum/21-tools/318027-fork-cylinder-holder#318027

I just got another idea. The main thing I need from this set of forks is the tubes - they have minimal rust. I have an extra set of KZ1000 forks sitting around with rusty tubes.

If worse comes to worse, maybe I'll drill out the bolts on the bottom, disassemble and then reassemble with the KZ1000 fork bottoms and internals, with the KZ900 fork tubes.

Should work, right?

The ebay item id given is invalid, no result has been sentJust saw this on e-bay too

You can drill out the allen bolt, but you will still need a way to hold the fork cylinder or the whole thing will spin with the drill bit. Ed

650ed wrote: You can drill out the allen bolt, but you will still need a way to hold the fork cylinder or the whole thing will spin with the drill bit. Ed

Maybe the pressure from the fork springs will hold it still?

Possibly, I didn't try that. If you can make the fork tool you might want to try that first along with an impact wrench. Ed

Put the springs and caps back on and have the guy at corner garage hit the allen heads on bottem with an impact,theyll spin right out

.

I had the same problem & called redline cycle, Jim told me to do exactly what Wireman says to do in this post & they came right out....good luck

martin_csr wrote: It might help to apply some heat w a propane torch.
My caps & allen bolts were stuck until I hit them w heat.

I tried the torch yesterday and it still wouldn't loosen up.

Today - impact wrench.

On a KZ900 its a round nub with two opposing flat sides. I tried everything as well, torch, air impact, tapered broom handle, pipe with flattened end, rod with rubber end, and so forth nothing worked. Finally saw a post somewhere where someone suggested a gator grip tool. That finally worked. Here is the videos I posted on YouTube. Its in four parts. Part 3 which shows me using the gator grip.






Edit: To finally get the seals out of the lowers, I ended up using a claw hammer. But it scratched the inside of the cylinder a bit (no permanent harm done). If I had to do it again I would tape the ends of the claw to keep it from scratching the inner diameter.