Spring removal for girls.

[suzyj]

So I want to replace the 1.0kg/mm springs in my shiny new Showa 998 forks with 0.9kg/mm ones.  I found instructions on the web, and went at it.  I removed the cap with a 32mm socket, then "used a couple of screwdrivers" to gain purchace on the spacer and compress the spring.

Hah!  As if.  It laughed at me.  I needed to compress the spring maybe 40mm, or 40kg of force.  Like that's going to happen.

So I figured I'd apply brainpower rather than brawn to the problem, and here's what I came up with, being modeled by my husband (who incidentally isn't a girl, but also isn't an engineer, so thinks I'm completely insane).



I made a U shaped piece, bent out of fairly thick steel.  I tapped a couple of 8mm holes in the sides, into which I put 8mm bolts.  The bolts go in to rather handy holes in the spring spacer.  Thus you end up with bolts hanging out the sides, looking for all the world like Frankenstein.

So next I stick a handy bit of pipe through where the axle goes.  I tie the end of a bit of rope to the pipe, pass it over the bolt on one side, back under the pipe, over the bolt, across to the other side, over the bolt, under the pipe, over the bolt, and finally tied to the pipe.  By pushing downwards on the bit that goes across, you gain quite a bit of leverage, and are able to press the spring down with relative ease.

Indeed even I can do it.

Once compressed, I slip a handy bit of metal over the spring spacer, under the nut thingy.  It's just a 50mm square bit of strong steel with a 10mm wide slot cut in it.



So I hope that's of use to someone.

[WarrenJ]

Thats using your mechanical advantage!!!

[silversled]

That's awesome.  Very well done. 

This is how I did mine when rebuilding my GSXR1000 forks for my monster. 

[ID_DUC_MON]

"Spring removal for girls." My wife just uses the "really short skirt, silky-loose top, cold beer" method to get things done to her bike. Seems effective. 

[jerryz]

I usually use BRUTE force and my daughter  as a 2nd pair of hands ...but these methods shown above are elegant.

[sbrguy]

that is some ingenious use of pulleys and mechanical advantage.

way to use that "basic" engineering principles that they teach you in beginning engineering school that you always say "when am i ever going to use pulleys ever? nobody still uses manual pulleys, right? "