So the 250k+ K75 is due an MOT shortly and the forks were leaking plus the steering head bearings were notchy. Took the forks off (let's ignore the bit where the drift slipped and the hammer went into the clocks, OK?) and drained the oil out. Oh dear... not only had the seals let oil out it looks like they'd let water in. So I had to strip the forks to clean them. Unfortunately when I took the forks apart there were pistons with fibre rings on the end of rods. The rings were a loose fit on the pistons (had fallen off during removal) and the 'cylinders' started about 4 inches into the bottom of the fork sliders. The manual suggested that I needed to use a special tool- a cylinder that had a wall thickness of .35mm designed to shim out the bottom of the forks to be the same diameter as the 'cylinders' further up the forks. My solution... take a piece of cling film about 1 inch in length and whatever length it came in. Fold it in half and then half again. Wrap the cling film around the bottom half of the ring when in place on the piston. Lubricate the ring and push it up the slider and engage in the cylinder. The start of the cylinder then pushed the cling film off so it could be easily picked out. We'll also ignore the fact that Pyramid Plastics supplied the wrong fork seals and I only found out this evening when trying to finish off the job.
