{"id":1374,"date":"2022-01-31T16:19:25","date_gmt":"2022-01-31T16:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alphabeta.me.uk\/blog\/?p=1374"},"modified":"2022-01-31T16:22:14","modified_gmt":"2022-01-31T16:22:14","slug":"removing-a-seized-fork-cap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alphabeta.me.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2022\/01\/31\/removing-a-seized-fork-cap\/","title":{"rendered":"Removing a seized fork cap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nearly a year ago, I was struggling with a seized fork cap which wouldn’t come out no matter how much heat and hammers were applied.
I worked around the issue by buying a new cap, and using spare parts from the copious stack accumulated over 40 years of LC ownership.
(Link to blog entry)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time has passed, the initial build of the project bike is completed, but the stuck fork cap has been weighing on my mind.
Clearly, I need to apply pressure from below… more than the spring entombed within can apply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My initial thought was to drill a hole in the cap, thread it for a bolt, and pull the cap out.
I’m sure this would have worked, but I went for something more ambitious.
I wanted to push from the underside.
The problem is that I could only fit a 6mm piece of bar through the 8mm threaded hole in the bottom of the fork stanchion… and I thought that a bar so slim may bend and make matters worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, my though processes turned to the threaded hole itself, so I bought a meter length of 8mm studding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I screwed this into the bottom of the stanchion, and ran it up the 70cm length to the top of the stanchion with an electric drill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Once it was butted up against the cap, I removed the drill, and gave the end of the exposed stud a tap with a rubber mallet.
…and the cap popped straight out!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It may have taken a while to think of a solution, but lateral thinking wins the day.
The cap is in such poor condition I would have had to buy a new one anyway. The rubber o-ring is nowhere to be seen. Possibly a consequence of the heat and hammers approach originally tried, but I would have expected to see some remnant, other than the greasy black detritus which came out with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nearly a year ago, I was struggling with a seized fork cap which wouldn’t come out no matter how much…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alphabeta.me.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alphabeta.me.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alphabeta.me.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alphabeta.me.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alphabeta.me.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1374"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.alphabeta.me.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1383,"href":"https:\/\/www.alphabeta.me.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374\/revisions\/1383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alphabeta.me.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alphabeta.me.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alphabeta.me.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}