Easy fork spring change

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I installed new fork springs on my cr250 without removing the forks and thought I'd do a quick write up for anyone who hasn't done this before or who may be wondering if you can change fork springs on older style cartridge forks with the forks still mounted. This is pretty easy, but I would only suggest doing this if your forks were recently serviced and still have fresh parts/oil that don't need attention. You can see in the pics that my fork internals are pretty clean and at the time only had about 3-4 hours of ride time on them since installing new seals, bushings, and fresh oil. If your forks haven't been serviced in a while, I'd suggest taking them off and at least changing the fluid and giving everything a once over.

(I have a baja designs kit and subtanks on my bike so there were a couple more steps involved than normal)

I first removed the upper mounts on my headlight and swung it forward, then removed my bar pad.



I then removed the handlebar clamps and set them aside with the new springs. I then rotated the bars and set them in front of the upper triple clamp.





The instructions for the springs were sort of cryptic. I called Race Tech and they confirmed what I thought would need to be done....remove the old springs, put these in, done.

Next, I removed the sub tanks.



I then loosened up the upper triple clamp bolts.



Then I backed the adjusters on the fork caps all the way out, noting where they were so I could put them back where they were when done. Then, I loosened both fork caps, and VERY carefully lowered the bike's stand down to allow the fork springs to protrude out of the fork legs.



I pushed the fork springs down to get a wrench on the nut that the fork cap tightens against and loosened the fork cap, removed the spring, and used a wrench to hold up the damper assembly when I got the other spring ready.



I then just slipped the new spring on reusing the stock washer, while making sure the damper didn't fall down into the fork leg. The left side went great...the right was much harder, but overall, it was still much easier than removing them and having to re-align everything.

Once the springs were in, I installed the fork caps and torqued them back down. The space between the coils of the new springs allowed access to the nut on the damper without having to compress the spring, so that made things much easier.

After the fork caps were back on, I carefully raised the bike's stand back up, guiding the fork caps back into the fork tubes and making sure that the threads on both didn't get damaged. Then I just tightened the fork caps back down, put the adjusters back where they were, and tightened the upper clamp bolts back to factory torque specs.

Finally, reinstalled the sub-tanks, handlebars and put everyting back the way it was.

[Woody_393]

Very nice write up, thank you for sharing.

I've move this to the KB.