Yo!

Was coming home for the weekend and thought I should practise stoppies and wheelies for a while, just small fun tricks which is good to know-how properly! One thing I noticed after a few minutes was that the suspension fork at the front was sorta stuck when I used it. I kinda had to drag it up again, this got worse and worse while riding... It ended up with me riding the bike like a bike-trial with a rigid fork up front. Quite hard work but I can almost say everybody should try it, fun!!

So now the bike stands in the shed and waits on me to start work on it. But I thought I should ask here first, cos' I know it leaks a little oil... So do you guys think it's empty of fuel and those rubber-things at the end of the shocks has dried and probably turned or something like that?

Sorry for the bad english =P

Edit: Damn forgot to mention which bike this is all about: '97 GG Fortuna 270cc

Would appreciate tricks and tips...!!

Cheers,

Sondre

Edited October 9, 200916 yr by skj0lsvik

Never had this problem ..can't do stoppies... it must be pumping up with air.... passing a seal?.. no breather at top?

If the problem is acute in onset you may have dented the fork slider. This will certainly make the action of the fork very stiff and may even make the slider stick on the leg. A bent fork leg may give a similar stiff action. Why not take off the wheel and compress each fork seperately and see which of the fork, or maybe both, is causing the problem.

Have you had the front wheel out recently? Sometimes the can mis-aline. On my enduro bike I used to bounce the forks before tightening the pinch bolts on the bottom of the fork as I have seen front suspension 'lock' this way.

I had the same problem on my 1999 gasgas 270. i had hit a tree stump which twisted the forks in the clamps causing a mis-alignment, which effect the rebound on my forks, when i put weight on forks and released the forks would stay compressed, so i loosened all the bolts except for top clamp, bounced forks a few times, then tightend bottom triple clamps, then bounced forks again a few times and tightened front wheel up, mud guard bracket goes on last and should line up tidy with mounting holes. rebound sorted then.

I did have a little oil leaking thou so i then decided (a week or two after sorting above problem) to get seals done and new oil put in the forks, the front end of the bike feels ten times nicer, they told me in shop to tweek adjusters to my own liking but i hav'nt bothered cause it feels so much better than before. good luck

Cheers! Got some really good tips that I can try now, will try it within a few days!

I see that it's the left forkleg which is stuck.. How is it reccomended to tear these down? =)

I've removed every damn screw/bolt on the forkleg now and gotten it allmost off... It feels like it's totally stuck about 2-4 cm before it falls off :/ I've hammered for several minutes now...

Damn

Managed to get it fixed!

What was wrong with it in the end? Lack of oil or bent slider etc glad you got it fixed though

I'm not really sure actually, it was totally full of dirt and dirty oil. So we removed everything and filled it with DIESEL actually =P hehe, got all the dirt out of it and then dried it properly and then we filled about 3,5 dl with fresh new fork oil on each forkleg... Works damn good now and feels much smoother, but does anyone know how much oil each leg really needs?