Showa Fork Service Manual
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So, here goes. Here is a look at installing the Andreani pistons in the 43 mm Showa Big Piston Forks. There are a couple of special tools needed. Plus, a shop would use a fork vice for the disassembly, but hey, the triple tree clamps are about the best fork vice going if you can't afford another specialized tool.
This writeup is not intended to be a replacement for using the instructions in the HD Service Manual for maintenance of the BPF's, or the Andreani installation information. This is just a look at some of the steps involved in the process.
Starting at the very beginning, I'll use the lift to raise the front wheel just off the ground, to extend the forks and allow later removal of the front wheel. For now, the wheel stays on, because the lower fork slider legss need to be locked in place, until after the inner cylinders in the top of the forks are loosened.
Items in white link to credible source Items in orange are sourced from the official factory service manual, parts book or sales brochure. Entries in blue are not USD forks Remaining items in silver are unsubstantiated. Fork length is from axle centre to top of fork tube, NOT fork cap, when fully extended.
To gain access to the top of the forks, I removed the handlebar clamp to rotate the handlebar out of the way. Just the four clamp bolts need to be removed.
To loosen the fork cap I am using a MotionPro fork cap socket. It fits nicely, and is aluminum to reduce the liklihood of marring the cap. With the forks still clamped in the triple trees, you can hold the front wheel in place and break both caps loose.
Because the front wheel is still mounted, once both caps have been loosened, lift the front wheel 6 to 9', to expose the piston rod.
And here are the fork rods exposed, with the front wheel lifted up.
Depending upon the type of tool you have to remove the inner cylinder, you may or may not need to remove the top cap from the rod before removing the inner cylinder. Some of the cylinder wrenches slide down the rod. This wrench from MotionPro is slotted so that it can be slipped in place with the fork cap still attached.
With the cylinder wrench in place, I use a 1/2' breaker bar for leverage. The inner cylinder may be torqued in to over 60 ft-lbs, so it takes a little effort to loosen it. Once broken loose, it should spin out easily.
When the cylinder is fully unloosened, the springs on the piston rod will cause the cylinder to pop up. The whole piston rod assembly can then be slowly removed from the fork.
Pull it out slowly to keep from spilling oil all over the front end of the bike.
This is the piston rod assembly, ready to be wiped dry so that it can be worked on. In my case, because of the design of the Showa tool, I did not have to remove the top cap to remove the inner cylinder and piston rod assembly from the fork.
And with the inner cylinder and piston assembly removed, you can look down into the fork leg to see the oil level. It wouldn't do any good to measure the oil level like this, since the fork is not vertical, but later when the fork tubes are removed, one could measure the 'before' oil level as an approximate reference point for re-filling, if desired.
The fork spring spacer and fork spring could be poured out of the fork tube when the tubes are removed from the triple trees, but they can also be pulled out now with a wire hook, if desired.
After loosening the pinch bolts on the triple tree clamps, the fork tubes can be removed and the old oil poured out of them. There is a little less than .6 liter of fork oil in each tube. If one is careful, the oil can be poured out through a funnel into a small bottle. Be sure to keep your hand over the end of the tube though, because the bottom spring guide will come out with the oil.
And the last part out of the fork tube is the fork spring guide. This is actually messier to remove than the following picture shows, since the guide will be covered with oil when it comes out. The bottom picture shows what the guide looks like, but this is acually after I had already drained the tube and wiped off the spring guide.
Here is the piston rod assembly ready to have the new Andreani piston installed. Notice the OEM piston's narrow single piston ring.
The end of the piston rod is crimped. To remove the nut securing the piston, the crimp needs to filed off.
I used a Dremel tool to remove the lip so the nut could be unscrewed.
When you try to back the nut off the bottom end of the piston rod, one of two things is going to happen. Either the nut will unscrew, and the piston with its shims and spacers can be removed from the rod, or the short rod extension holding the whole piston assembly, will come off. On one of my piston rods the extension came off with the piston group. On the other, the nut broke free onthe end of the rod, and I could lift the piston and shims right off.
If the short rod extension comes loose, it will look like the below pic.
The next picture isn't very good, but it shows the piston coming off the rod, and the internal needle valve.
Either way, once the ridge on the end of the rod filed off, the nut on the end of the rod can be removed, and the OEM piston and shims can be replaced with the Andreani parts.
I lifted the OEM piston, spacers, and shims off the rod extension in the above picture, and then screwed the extension back on the damper rod.
The below picture shows the piston rod, ready to accept the new Andreani piston and shims. One thing to pay attention to after filing the end of the rod, is the threads for the nut. These 8 mm threads will likely need to be dressed before the nut will thread back on. I used a re-threading die to clean up the threads on the end of the rod.
First on the rod is the OEM spring, followed by the new metal Andreani collar. The Showa collar is plastic.
The Andreani piston, shims, and spacers are stacked on the rod in the order they came in the package. I won't show all of the individual shims/parts being installed, but I started with the spacer on the end and stacked all of the parts as they came from Andreani.
After the large spacer I placed all of the shims and parts on the rod in order. The arrow by the 'C' points toward the fork cap, or top of the fork.
The remaining shims, spacer, and washer go on, and then the rod is ready to have the nut re-installed. Use Red Loctite when re-intalling the nut on the end of the rod to 7 Nm of torque (about 60 in-lbs).
With the nut installed on the piston rod holding the new Andreani piston, here is the OEM rod on the left with its plastic spacer and narrow single-ring piston vs. the new Andreani hardware with the wider piston with two rings.
The actual piston rings are not yet installed in their grooves on the Andreani piston.
The new rings come coiled in a small circle. Warmed in your hand for a bit, they will easily uncurl and can be positioned on the piston. A small amount of white lithium grease will help keep the rings in their grooves and the installation, and let the rings slide more easily into the fork tubes.
Here are the rings installed, and ready for a light coat of grease.
Moving on, here is a look at the new progressive Ohlins spring and the OEM spring.
The progressive Ohlins spring is slightly longer than the stock spring and has the tighter spring coil at one end.
Before re-installing the piston rod assembly, the fork tube needs to be re-filled with oil. The stock oil is 10 wt. The Ohlins oil that I used for this installation is 15. The oil is added to a specific depth in the fork tubes, and then the piston rod assembly is inserted.
Directions for adding oil vary slightly, but the end result is the same. Fork oil is added to a specific depth from the top of the fork tubes (with the fork spring and its spacers installed, and the lower slider leg fully depressed into the top fork tube).
The recommendation from FastBikeIndustries is to fill the fork to a depth of 10 cm. My observation is that 10 cm may be a bit too much oil - which is not a problem since the excess will push out the top as the inner cylinder is depressed - but this does cause a bit of excess oil to spill out. My suggestion is to fill to a depth of 13 cm (130 cm), which will almost exactly fill the fork tube without oil overflow.
After installing the spring rod guide, fork spring, and the top spring collar in the fork tube, I added the fork oil by carefully pouring it in with a funnel to the right depth.
Using the end of my vernier micrometer as a dipstick, I filled the oil until it was the right depth. If you overfill, you can use a short length of plastic tube as a burette, and pull excess oil back out by putting the tube in the fork and using your thumb to create a vacuum and remove fluid. Experts have a syringe type tool with a long probe that can be used to quickly and precisely set the oil level.
Here is another look at measuring the oil level. With the lower slider fully compressed into the top fork tube, the oil level is measured from the top of the top fork tube, to the top of the oil in the lower slider tube. On the XR1200 about 13 cm (130 mm) works well.
Note: The reading displayed on the vernier micrometer in this picture is not the final depth. This is from an interim measurement which I took.
With the oil level set, the piston assembly and inner cylinder are lowered into place. The rod can be moved up and down several time in the oil, to bleed air bubbles out of the piston and fork tube.
Depending upon the type of inner cylinder tool that you have, you can either reinstall the inner assembly like I am showing, or you may have to leave the fork cap off so that you can slide your wrench down it. With the MotionPro slotted tool, I can insert the inner cylinder and piston rod assembly with the cap in place.
This takes strong hands to reinstall. The inner cylinder must be pushed down, compressing the rod spring slightly and displacing a little bit of excess oil in the top of the fork tube, and then tightened. I like to push the cap down, and turn it counterclockwise until I feel the threads line up, before reversing direction and tightening the inner cylinder into place. The inner cylinder threads are fine, so take care not to strip them. Also, I put a touch of silicone grease on the ring at the top of the inner cylinder tube to help it ease into place - these white rings can supposedly not be purchased individually, so it pays to take care re-installing this cylinder.
After tightening the inner cylinder initially holding the fork tube by hand, I use the triple tree clamps to hold the fork tubes for final tightening of the inner cylinder and fork tube cap. For now, the cylinder is simply tightened into place snugly.
With the inner cylinders reinstalled in both fork tubes (and the fork tube caps loosely installed), I re-inserted the fork tubes in the triple tree clamps, and remounted the front wheel. This will hold the lower fork sliders so that the inner cylinders can be torqued, and the fork caps can be re-intalled and final tightened. Specs given for the inner fork cylinder vary (HD specs 66 ft-lbs).
With the inner cylinder done, the top cap can be torqued. HD specs this at 21 to 29 ft-lbs.
Once I have the top cap torqued, I rotate the top fork tube in the triple tree clamp to the angle that makes it easiest for me to access the compression and rebound adjusters under the handlebar, and then I finish tighteneing and torquing all the front end fasteners.
And, voila! the front end has been upgraded. From the outside, noone would know the difference.
Conclusion
Again, big kudos to Dave Behrend at FastBikeIndustries for his great support on this product. If you don't have the tools or mechanical skills to do the installation yourself, you can send your fork tubes to FastBikeIndustries and they will do the installation for you.
And thanks to Dave Moss at OnTheThrottle for putting together such an excellent video on Showa BPF maintenance.
I'll write more about the improvement in suspension feel, once I have a chance to take the bike back out on the road!
To return to the overview page for the Andreani-Ohlins upgrade,click here.
To see some of the Specialized Tools needed for this work,click here.
To return to the XR1200 Tech Info page,click here.