Front Forks Stuck in Steering StemFront Forks Stuck in Steering StemAlright my esteemed brethren here is a vexing problem to solve. I am working on the Zen bike (1964 CB 77 350). As part of the rebuild we removed both of the front shocks to clean and repaint and refill with fluid. Everything went swimmingly until we tried to reinstall the shock legs into the steering stem. As we all know the front fork (shock) "pipes" are tapered. Ours will only go in slightly beyond where the taper widens. They stop about 2 inches short of the height they need to be in the steering stem in order to connect with what Honda calls the holder pipe but everyone else calls the handlebar bracket I.E., they polished aluminum piece that sits on top of the fork and into which the handlebars are fastened. We can see the wear mark on the fork legs where they used to sit in the steering stem but we cannot put the fork legs (pipes) in to that point. The Zen master and I are pulling our hair out trying to get these forks back in! We have tried widening the steering stem bracket with a wedge but it is cast metal and we do not dare do too much. Pounding the forks from the bottom seems kind of silly since these are shocks and would absorb all of the recoil. Everything we have tried has been to no avail. There must be something we are missing. Can anybody please tell us how to do this? As always, your help is greatly appreciated!
Same fork stanchions?
Same lower triple clamp? Are the bores in the triple clamp clean? How easy was it to get them out? You should be able to push a large screwdriver into the slot in the triple clamp to get enough diameter to slide the fork stanchion in. Have you got the fork covers in the right place? Pictures, pictures, pictures...... G '60 C77 '60 C72 '62 C72 Dream '63 CL72
'61 CB72 '64 CB77 '65 CB160 '66 Matchless 350 '67 CL77 '67 S90 '77 CB400F Fork stuckThanks for the reply. These are all good questions but everything is stock and as mentioned previously, we have already tried wedging the slot on the triple clamp to no avail. Thanks again. We will figure this out eventually!
Something has changed.
If they were easy to get out and you haven't changed anything, they should go back on. I would remove the lower triple clamp. Fit it to the fork tubes and then re-fit the whole assembly to the bikes. G '60 C77 '60 C72 '62 C72 Dream '63 CL72
'61 CB72 '64 CB77 '65 CB160 '66 Matchless 350 '67 CL77 '67 S90 '77 CB400F Fork stuckYes G, I was thinking the same thing. I was putting this off because it is kind of a pain with the bearings already greased and installed but it may be the only way. I may also try just flipping the frame over with the fork tube,headset, and triple tee still installed and see if we can coax these shocks in from the bottom. I will let you know how it goes!
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