/5 fork rebuild

[woodpile]

I've never worked on them before but I have no idea what I could have done wrong. Perhaps I shouldn't have followed the manual.I removed the snap wring and spacers on the bottom and tried to push it through the top as it said,there was no way at all that they just going to push out the top.The second one just barely made contact with the top and got stuck.I do know one thing though,I wont being doing this again any time soon.I wonder if a previous owner somehow distorted the rings putting them in. Onward to the rebuild and alignment!!

[Deleted User 62]

Think of the wiper rings like piston rings. They will compress, and if you rock them in the tube they will work their way out. This destroys them, because the rings get chewed by the threads and vice versa. Install using the feeler gauge trick, like a ring compressor, and the new ones won't get chewed up going in...

[woodpile]

So I'm sure that when some you read about my troubles with the wiper rings that you probably thought-" How in the hell did this idiot manage to do that ?"I'll tell you how-By not thinking for myself and having blind faith in my Clymer manual.After giving it a day and going back for another look I can see that if I pulled the dampener rod out from the bottom (axle side) where the threads are recessed into the fork tube they would have easily come out. The manual says to remove them from the top which to me would be the top clamp side of the tube,and they promptly caught the threads destroying themselves. Live and learn!