Rotating Fork Tubes ?

[Great White North]

Hello All, I was doing some maintenance on my '96 11RT, I noticed that the fork tubes can easily be rotated by hand, both of them. The nut at the top is torqued properly. Is this 'normal' for these bikes ?

 

THanks in advance.

 

Mland.

[Selden]

Yup.

[Great White North]

Thanks for confirming that this is normal, one less thing to worry about.

 

Regards,

 

Mland.

[Tank]

Good one. hahaha Just had my tires rotated and I had never heard of rotating forks before and was wondering WHY someone would want to.... must be late sleep sleeep sleeeeep

[effexer1]

Sorry about that Marcel, I meant to remove my front wheel to get you that answer.

[ShovelStrokeEd]

They really should not rotate. The nut at the top has nothing to do with it. There are clamp bolts on both the upper triple clamp and the lower fork bridge. As I recall, you will need either a 6 or 8mm wrench for the top ones and either a 12, 13, or 14mm ring spanner for the bottoms. Loosen, and then torque to spec.

[Selden]

They really should not rotate. The nut at the top has nothing to do with it. There are clamp bolts on both the upper triple clamp and the lower fork bridge. As I recall, you will need either a 6 or 8mm wrench for the top ones and either a 12, 13, or 14mm ring spanner for the bottoms. Loosen, and then torque to spec.

Maybe we're talking about different bikes. There are no such clamp bolts (as in a traditional telescopic fork) on an R1100 telever. The only things holding the fork tubes in place are the top nuts and the overall geometry of the telelever. Remove the top nut, twist things a little, and the fork tube just pulls out.

 

The fork tubes don't spin, but with a firm grip, it's certainly possible to turn them by hand in a fully assembled telelever. I was amazed the thing works at all, let alone as well as it does when I first pulled a fork tube.

[Peter Parts]

And don't loosen both stanchions at the same time!!!