I thought I’d been posting to the blog partway through, but
when I dug through the past, I realized I hadn’t updated anything about this RK. I removed the fork right after getting the inspection done.
So that’s why we’re going to refresh the front fork.
The inner tube came back from re-plating.
Shiny ☆ smooth and slick, it should operate beautifully.
I’ve given a light introduction to the before and after condition here.
As for the finish, it comes back as a really excellent inner tube.
The OEM isn’t bad, but overall the clearance is scattered in the 100-micron range.
Occasionally I’ve even seen used ones that are thick in the 100-micron range.
Even when the inner tube wears, the numbers don’t actually decrease that much. I think the inner tube conditions that wear down the oil seal are either “rust” or “polished so much it’s shiny”—not something else.
We use a stripping agent to make it tacky, then shot-blast it to strip it off.
After that, we clean it thoroughly, degrease it, and apply gun coat. Gun coat—or baking as they call it—is nice.
It dries fast at room temperature, so you can even touch it. Plus it’s single-component, so if there’s any left over you can pour it back into the bottle.
It’s an older video, but basically we spray with GSI Creos ProSpray MK-6 PS166.
I have a proper gun too, but cleaning and maintenance are a hassle, so I’m pushing to see “how far can this thing go?” every day.
Surprisingly often, the areas where the oil seal and metal go in are heavily corroded.
When you clean these spots up nicely, the seal and metal slide in smoothly! I think.
When we can handle various jobs in-house, we save time and the finish depends on us. When we outsource, shipping costs and markup ratios become an issue.
Shorter turnaround, lower final price, higher profit margin. Of course, when we can handle risks and recovery in-house too, there are benefits in various ways.
But it’s best to stick to what we can do.
Assembly is complete. If you stroke the rod thoroughly and then bleed with a vacuum pump, reliability improves and you save time.
It suddenly felt really nice—”whoosh?”
The Racing Nissin is subtly cool. It looks stock, but Mavic is the real deal.
At first glance, that stock feel is great.
That’s pretty niche, I have to say.
I got into it back in the day too—period racing parts. There’s a certain joy in not being able to buy them anymore, you know? Since so few people have them.
We got a consultation about a slight leak from the sub oil cooler.
Hmm…
The recessed mounting port seemed like the issue. I thought just swapping the gasket would do it… but
A gasket swap won’t stop it…
Something felt off about the tightness…
Something’s not right, so I removed the cooler and took a close look.
When I looked closely,
Hmm? Looking closely, both left and right have cracks…
Now what to do. New ones aren’t available, so
Well, cutting it and re-welding to bring it back is… the condition is what it is.
Welding it would be risky. (Complete degreasing is a hassle because it’s pretty oily.)
So we decided to remove the sub oil cooler.
The Y-shaped piping on the back was delivered as a separate part, so that’s good.
We’ll hold off for now.
