Wilsons Sandbox

The following is a report of the mechanically inept. Please, no heckling and please refraim from laughing until the end. We have a lot of material to get through. Well, I chose tonight to install the progressive springs I got from Fred. Got the instructions handy and ready to go. Then Mr. Murphy decided to stop by and help. Drainiing the oil went well. It dripped nicely into the container. At least until I removed the top caps.. Nice slick on the garage floor. Oh yeah, the top caps. Whomever installed/assembled/prepped the bike over torqued the top caps. I cranked and cranked until pop! Stripped the soft aluminum hex. #*)(@!*$#. That was the left one. OK, now for the right one... EVEN TIGHTER! This one I couldn't budge. I grabbed a torque wrench just out of curiosity. WAY off the scale. I finally got it off with vice grips. So, tomorrow morning, I get to stop by the Kawi dealer and buy/order two new top caps. My guess is that they're REALLY expensive. Anyway, I compressed the forks and add new oil. That wen't OK. I used the bent coathanger technique. Man, there's got to be a better way. 190 +/- 2mm? I doubt this will be that accurate. Then, the support under the front tire kicks out. Bike falls. Kinda caught it. No damage that I can see. More oil on the floor as I knock over the basin I used to catch the fork oil. I went with 2.5" spacers instead of 2" for a little stiffer ride. I used a pipe cutter to cut the stock spacers. The left side spacer was all cruddy. The right side was shiny silver. What's up with that? Got it all back together, but because of the ruined top caps couldn't get them torqued down properly. Grrrr... Went for a quick ride, hit some speed bumps and WOW, what a difference! Won't be doing any serious riding though until I can get the new top caps. Finally I realized that I forgot to put lock tite on the drain screws. I figured I'd do that when the new top caps come in. So, there are some morals to this story: 1. Its a hardware problem. I remember now why I do software. 2. Saving a few $$$ can cost you a bunch of $$$ 3. Wow, some people can make things look sooooo easy. 4. Maybe the dealer's service isn't so bad after all.... Now after all that, the hard drive in my Linux server craps its pants. Its OK though, I have a 20GB laying around and heck, tearing apart and building computer systems IS something I can do! I'll go off to the corner now and play with my lips. Glenn

Glenn- I have more KLR frontends than I know what to do with... I think that I can spare a set of top caps. Make me an offer after you find out what BigK want for them. This also goes for anyone else out there... I have two complete sets of forks (no wheels), one sans upper tubes, but I have more spare seals, lower legs, front calipers, damper rods, and misc parts than I know what to do with. I would rather part with complete sets, but let me know what is needed. Thanks, Zack