What did you do to your Royal Enfield today?

[barenekd]

This was yesterday.
Finally got around to changing my fork oil. On the surface, it should have been a quick and easy job. It was fairly easy technically, but typically took longer than it  should and made a big mess!
Actually, the day didn't even start with me out to do this. I got a bicycle speedo that I as going to mount and finally had figured out to to attach everything for the pickup pieces. I had to modify the magnet holder that clips on a spoke because Bullet spokes are much heavier, so I had to start out with a little Dremel work, then find a bigger screw to hold the parts together. The screw as too long so a little grinding and sanding work was at hand. I got the magnet attached to the spoke finally, and then started at how to mount the pickup holder to the bike. I decided to put an arm on the fender bolt, and couldn't remember if the bolt that holds teh fender on could be removed with the wheel in situ. But being the intrepid soul I figured the best way to remember was to try to take it out. Now a little Loctite goes a long way and the bolt was very tight. I had to get another wrench to attach to the 13mm wrench I had wrapped around the bolt head and gain a bit of leverage. Well, the bolt popped loose and my had clobbered the sharp edge of the fender cutting it. So here I am bleeding, so I had to go upstairs and get the Neosporin and a bandaid so I'm not slinging blood all over the place.
I made it back downstairs and continued to try to remove the fender bolt. It hit the wheel. Damn. I didn't feel like taking the wheel off at that time, so I had to find the Loctite tube and unclog that before I could screw the bolt back in.
So I decided since I'm out in the garage and my hands are already dirty and beat up, I may as well do the fork oil change, which is long overdue anyway.   
I started out looking for my impact gun. That took awhile because I haven't used it in a while and I forgot where I put it. Searching through all my overstuffed tool box drawers took awhile. Then looking for the bottle of 10wt fork oil took a lot longer than it should particularly when it was right in front of me.
I should've prefaced this with the fact that for some reason, I am not the guy you want to send out looking for anything. I'm terrible at finding stuff. It can be right in front of me and I won't see it there!
I waned to drain the oil in a can so I could see how much oil was in the forks, so I had to dig on out of the garbage and wash it out. While I was in the kitchen, I wiped some dishes and put them away.
Anyway, I finally found the tools for the bottom, so I grabbed a 16mm socket and tried to put it on the fork nut but it didn't fit, so I grabbed the next socket on the holder and it was too big. It was 18 MM. So I grabbed the 17mm that should've been where the 18mm was. That one fit. I put an oil drain pan under the fork and started in.
The impact gun made quick work of the nut and spun it right off. Unfortunately, as the nut was wildly gyrating and came to the end of the tube it attaches to, (or is that "to which it's attached?") the oil followed it very closely and sprayed out perpendicularly to the nut and a made a beautiful 360 degree ring everywhere including me!  And, unbeknownst to me, slung the brass washer with it. More on that later. I missed getting the oil into the can, so, so much for knowing how much oil was in there.
While the oil was draining, I cleaned up the mess and and started
looking for me impact driver and tips to remove the top caps. It typically took awhile, but I finally found them exactly where they should've been, and I had gotten everything together and as ready to take the right cap out. I put the screwdriver tip into the cap and twisted it so I could get a good hammer smack on it, but it came loose and was removed very easily.
I tried it on the left side and that one came unscrewed easily but was somewhat difficult to get out of the hole due to cabling over the top of it, but it wasn't bad.
I went back down and replaced the nut on the right, but it didn't tight very well and had some aluminum slivers coming out. Well OK, it's sealed.
Went to the left side and held some rags up to the nut and removed that. It still got away with making a mess, but not to the extreme the right one  had. But I did notice a brass washer laying in the pan. Then I realized what was wrong with the right nut. So while the left one was draining I spent awhile looking for the brass nut for the right side. I pulled the nut off the right side. I couldn't find it anywhere, you know how good that kinda thing is at hiding!
So I started digging around in my collection of big washers, etc. and came up with a fiber washer that was just and RCH smaller than the original brass washer. I fiddled with that one for awhile to get it to thread on straight and finally got it and replaced the nut. It tightened down a bit more solidly that it did the first time.
After that, the 200 ml of oil per leg went in quite easily, and the caps went in with a little fiddling to get them past the cables and rubber baby buggy bumpers around the cable holes.
It was finished and so I rode it down the street sans helmet and goggles(!) and couldn't really tell anything different particularly, but the street is smooth and i didn't dare take it out on the boulevard. God, it felt good just jumping on the bike and riding it without all the paraphernalia!
So I came back and parked it in the driveway waiting for the moon to rise for the Phototag shot.
I did forget one thing in all this, though. My wife asked me this morning where her measuring cup that I had used to measure the incoming oil was. Oops! At least I knew where it was! I went out in the garage and got it, and washed it out for her. But she had used another one for whatever she was measuring, so I was pretty well off the hook.
I guess the bottom line is that the fork oil changing job is no a biggy and probably shouldn't take much for than a half hour if you have your s#&t together. However an impact gun and driver are highly recommend. Some guys have had problems getting both the bottom nuts and the top caps off. The bottom nuts moved slowly will allow the tubes to turn rather than unscrewing, but the impact gun will hit the nuts so quickly the tubes don't have a chance to turn. The top caps have been known to be a lot tighter than mine were.
Bare

[Jack Leis]

Good ! Now you can do mine.

[barenekd]

You can hold the rag when I take the nuts off!
Bare

[Jack Leis]

Sounds like a plan. Gotta fix my leak first so we can ride Sunday if it doesn't rain !

[GreenMachine]

You can hold the rag when I take the nuts off!
Bare

Bare: Not that that never happen...Us Iron guys have it a bit easier on this procedure..Just a low container, open both end of the fork and let it bleed out...I found measuring out the fork oil in exact amount more of a PIA but that''s because I had to find my glasses and find something that measures pn ml...GM

[Jack Leis]

 God I want to say something regarding the nuts but I wont !

[barenekd]

Us Iron guys have it a bit easier on this procedure..Just a low container, open both end of the fork and let it bleed out...I found measuring out the fork oil in exact amount more of a PIA but that''s because I had to find my glasses and find something that measures pn ml...GM

That's all you have to do on these. It's just that when you take the nuts off with an impact driver, they come off really quickly! I guess I could've just broken them loose and unscrewed them the rest of the way off by hand.
Don't you have a cook's measuring cup around the house? That should show ml on it. Mine does.
Bare

[barenekd]

God I want to say something regarding the nuts but I wont !

Well, there are a couple of them hanging around, and if you fiddle with them properly they will squirt all over the place!

Is that too much?
Bare

[Jack Leis]

Your a dirty old man Bare !

[Arizoni]

bare
It's just as well that you didn't measure the amount of  oil in the forks.  It probably would have been around the same 150 ml that was in mine so you would start thinking, "This worked good so far.  Why is everybody saying it needs 200ml? They were talking about the older Iron Barrels forks and those are different than these forks.
If I put in 200ml will that be too much?  Will I blow the seals?"

That's what went thru my mind when I changed my fork oil in my G5 so I split the difference and put in 180ml.
Now that you've put in 200ml I'll get an answer to my question when you tell everyone how well your forks are working (or that your fork seals blew).

[mattsz]

Bare - apparently my B5 has the same fork as the C5, so please don't do mine!   

Wait a minute, if the B5 is basically the old Bullet with the new UCE, why the heck don't I have the iron guys' "easy" forks, like GreenMachine's?   

[GreenMachine]

Believe bare rides a black g5 that has the same fork setup as my 06 iron. Doesn't the b5 share the same forks as the c5, which actually has a more involved procedure when changing the fluid?   

[mattsz]

Yes GM... hence my 

Why put the "new" (is it new?) fork on the "old" Bullet frame?  It's hypothetical, don't answer...

After reading Ducati Scotty's C5 fork tutorial, I'm trying to imagine what Bare's garage would look like after that job! 

[GreenMachine]

mattz: not sure about bare's garage,something about fluids squirting every which way...A sexual connotation was suggested and then I lost focus....From previous c5 comments  the c5/b5 fork oil replacement is a bit more involved but others have performed the service adequately.

[Chiefharlock]

If I'd had time to post yesterday, here is what I would have posted for "What did you do to your Royal Enfield today"

I blew the carbon out of the cylinder and the exhaust!!  To a screamin' run up I-44 on my way home from work to avoid a traffic jam at a light that always happens at the same Bat Time and Same Bat Channel during the work week :-)

Pushed 80+ from the interstate entrance all the way up to the Waynesville exit 158.  I'm pretty sure the truckers and other motorists really didn't know what to expect or think when they heard my extremely throaty and not at all polite at WOT fishtail and then saw me on my little Enfield blast past them.  LoL!  I love my C5 :-D