Repairing Rusted Seized RST Gila T5 Fork/Shocks

hey viewers check this out i got this track 4300 mountain bike i bought it from a guy off of craigslist yeah i got it got it for 50 bucks and it didn't need a lot of work on it a lot of parts replaced but it's gonna be a fun bike to work on i think and the first thing i'm going to work on is the shocks it's got rst gila t5 shocks on there which if you watch my videos i recently did a video where i overhauled a set of these these ones however are like completely frozen they don't compress at all and the they're a little bit rusty so i'm going to see if i can at least get them working maybe clean them up a little bit but see if i can get them unfrozen and that's my project for today i'm gonna go ahead and remove these uh brakes just get them out of the way here so just pull them off the brake cables already disconnected there next on the bottom side of the forks there's a couple bolts here that hold the lowers on to the uppers and i believe that a uh nope it's a four millimeter bolt so hopefully i can get these off this could be a challenge and okay this is gonna be tricky because one of the problems is when turning these uh the part that it's attached to on the inside may be turning as well and i believe that's what's happening here um and there's like water dripping out of here uh what happened on uh my previous uh forks i had the forks compressed in order to uh keep the parts inside from turning while i remove these bolts unfortunately since they're frozen i can't really compress them as is so i'm going to have to try something else okay this is something i kind of wondered about uh before is i have an impact wrench here and i was wondering if using an impact wrench on here with the sudden you know uh turns on will help remove these and remove these things fast enough faster than the stuff inside will turn so that's where the shots see what happens what's going to happen is nothing got that loud let me try this one here almost out okay got those out and so that's one way hopefully i didn't damage anything on the inside but we'll see okay now that i have those two screws removed out from under there i'm gonna try rubber mallet and see if i can tap this thing down and get it to break loose and it's moving it's moving and there so i got the lowers off there okay oh this is pretty ugly but it's progress now see if i get this this boot off of here there like that okay now i want to remove these two little top covers here to get the springs last ohmers out here's this tool that i made i have another video if you click the link over here you'll see a video on how i made this little tool but it fits right on here and allows me to remove these little adjuster caps so i've got a ratchet wrench here and just unscrew these there's this one and it's pretty ugly looking okay this stack in here seems to be stuck in there this little cushion here is not allowing it to move so as i push up on here it's not coming so what i'm going to do is try to see if i can get it to uh break loose in there so i have like a little extension here try to tap it down a little bit see if i get it to move a little bit in there and then see if i can get it to move up there's like a spring in here so it's like i'm hitting this it's just impacting just compressing the spring [Music] huh so okay still not a lot of progress in getting this thing to move here um what i'm going to try to do is use some heavy heavy duty silicone spray and spray this in here i figured that probably not going to damage the little rubber bumper in here and see if i get this to [Music] get to move down a little bit spray a little more in there let's see if i can cap it up so well thus far i haven't had luck in getting the stack out of this uh tube here so what i'm thinking of doing is putting the lowers back on putting pressure and see if i can push that thing out with steady pressure but what i'm going to do in the meantime is clean these up so that these will slide smoothly over that so i've got a scotch brite here and some degreaser so spray this on here let's see if i can clean these up a little bit okay a little bit cleaner there's a bunch of corrosion down here which i'm not sure i'm ever going to be able to get rid of slide these back on now let me see if i can put my weight down on here and get that thing to come out let's try the extension here and see if i can get it to move down a little bit and then press down and spray a little more in there so and got it out okay i want to pull these parts off here like this they're all just really nasty dirty now i get to take these parts out of here so i can clean them up i have a bit of a old cable housing here so i'm just going to use this to push the parts out through the top like this and there this one over here had like a little spring part on it and this one didn't so my guess is the little spring part still might be down in here okay looking down in there i can see that there's there's still a little spring and rubber part down in there so let me use like just a long metal rod here this is a five millimeter t wrench here and see if i can push it up and out [Music] [Music] and there that's there's that that little plastic part looks like it's pretty abused i got the spring there but it's out well here's all the dirty messy parts that i pulled out of there and so what i'm to use is some uh warm water and disc soap to see if i can clean all these parts up and hopefully get them uh till they're usable again using soap and water and a scrub brush i got these parts relatively clean though i'll probably go over them again now i want to clean the inside of the lowers here i'm going to use some the degreaser i have a hanger with wrapped around piece of cloth here so what i'm gonna do is just spray down inside these tubes here and then use the hanger with the cloth to just clean out inside these as best i can like that and i'll probably have to repeat it with a clean cloth until i get them all nice and clean now in an effort to get more of this uh corrosion off i'm gonna try a little bit of wd-40 and some more of the scratch bright on here spray the wd-40 on here and then use the scratch bright to see if i can get some more get it smoother now i need to clean the inside of the upper tubes again let me use the degreaser spray down in here just soak it take a little bit of cloth here just jam it down in here and i'm going to use my long wrench here to jam it down in there and then from the bottom side i push it up like this and then just kind of run it back and forth a few times and get all that stuff cleaned out there like that and do that on both sides okay so there's still corrosion on the outside a little bit and there's a little bit corrosion on the inside so what i'm going to do is i'm going to take some paper towels kind of bundle them up here a little bit wedge them down inside the the tubes a little bit like this and then pour in a little bit of apple cider vinegar which that will help soften and eaten the corrosion so i'll just pour that through until it comes out the bottom and then for the outside of the forks what i'm going to do is i'll just wrap these with paper towels like this and soak these with the apple cider vinegar and the paper towels will help keep the apple cider vinegar in contact with the corroded parts and that'll help soften the corrosion the rust on there time for the unveiling i let these sit overnight with the paper towels and the vinegar on there and you can see that the vinegar has soaked up quite a bit of the rust coloring here and let's see if i can clean some of this stuff off here use a little scotch brite here well it didn't remove all this stuff but it's definitely smoother now keep in mind this is just surface rust that's just on the surface where the uh kind of chrome cut got worn away this is not to the point where it's actually damaging the this the integrity of the forks to where i'm worried about them breaking it's just surface and just makes it rougher for the uh shocks to be uh smoothly go up and down um but yeah the using the uh vinegar definitely helps smooth this stuff out quite a bit and then i also want to push the stuff out from the inside here and then i'm gonna spray some the cleaner down in there big get a bit of cloth down in there [Music] and shove this out well i'm ready to start putting this thing back together now um what i'm going to use for grease is this stuff called slick olium and it's actually designed for shocks and uh you can buy slickolam you find it online uh it's also sold under the uh name slick honey and you might be able to find this at your local bike shop or you can find it online rst pretty much just says use a non-lithium-based grease on a previous pair of uh of these i used marine grease but i'm using slick oleum this time and it's it's pretty slippery so what i'm going to do is on these upper tubes here just put a thin coating all around to start off with next i'm going to install these little plunger parts that came out from the the bottoms in there and so again i'm gonna put like a thin coating of grease all over these especially one on this little rubber part here kind of get nice coating grease over everything here and then to install them to help guide them in through the hole in the bottom i'm going to use a piece of hanger and put this up through the top sit this on here like this and then push this in get this and then lower it down through the bottom like that and do the other one here nice coating of grease all over it and guide that through the bottom like that and i'm gonna do this a little bit differently than i did in my previous video um i'm gonna put the lowers on what i found was at the on the top of the little plunger there's a fitting on there for a five millimeter hex wrench so um i'm going to put the lowers on and i can hold that the top of the plunger with that while i put the bolt in from the bottom so i'm gonna put the boots on here and there's like a little uh uh little reservoir thing in here for grease i'm gonna put some grease in there fill that slide the boot up the shock here like this a little bit of grease in here like this slide the boot up here like this like that no there's going to be excess grease on there we can wipe that all off later next we want to install these little uh parts here that uh one looks like a little cork and the other looks like little like a spool of thread put some grease around the little rubber part here and this is going to go on first and you want the smaller end facing down and then comes the little spool of thread there's like a little inset part on one end and it's flat on the other and so the inset part is going to go facing up so get this part all nice and greased you get a little bit of a grease inside these channels here and slide this on and this stuff is really slippery press it on if you can if not when we go to put the lowers on it the uh part the little spindle part will or the plunger part will uh poke through so not a big deal at this point so get this greased up slide this on like that all nice and greased up here and slide this on like that okay i've got the lowers here and i want to get grease down inside the tubes here and then there's little seals on the top there there's a little channel inside the seals here so i'm going to get some grease in there and get grease up around in there i could probably these seals probably could use replacing but i don't even know if i can even get these seals it is what it is i want to get these things working um they're not going to be perfect but uh they should at least work um yeah so anyway i'm gonna slide these lowers on get these plunger parts down in there and slide these onto the uppers and pull them up like that okay with the forks compressed i'm going to use my five millimeter t-wrench here i could also use a uh five millimeter socket with a long extension to get down in there and so i'm going to put this in here and get it set into the fitting on the top of the plunger here using a flashlight so i can see there so now i have the wrench into the top of the plunger part i have the bolt that came out of the bottom i'm going to use a little bit of thread locker on here threadlocker blue medium strength just put a little bit onto the threads of the bolt here like that take my four millimeter allen wrench here and start screwing this into the bottom of the little plunger part and i can hold the t-wrench up here keep it from turning and then tighten that on like that and then do the other side a little bit of thread locker on the threads here and there now the lowers are all installed on here i'm ready to install the stacks inside there now again i want to get a nice good coating of grease all over the springs and all the parts in here the little uh rubber or the little cushion here fits on top of this little fitting right here just pops on like that and i want to get a nice good coating of grease on that as well and then the little adjuster up here it fits on top here there's a little fitting on here this just inserts into a little cushion like that and i'll get a little bit of grease on that as well and then this just inserts in here like this and let me get the other one done there's the cushion it's a little dirty but i think it'll work and i'll get the they're all put together and get nice coating of grease all over this thing and then slide this down into there like this and then i need to start screwing these adjusters in and i'm starting them in by hand i want to make sure that i don't cross thread them then use my wrench here start tightening them in do the other side here reseat the little boots down on here like this do the other one over here like this there clean up any excess grease around there well all done and they're they're moving pretty well and that's how you do it if you found this video useful or interesting please click like i always appreciate getting likes on my videos i have a facebook page rj the bike guy you can find a link in the description you can like that page and i'll have a lot of stuff on there and if you're not subscribed to my youtube channel please subscribe to there uh you can click the big subscribe button and uh you'll see new videos as they come out anyway thank you very much for watching hope you enjoyed this

Channel: RJ The Bike Guy

Views: 545,381

Keywords: Repair And Operations (Film Subject) bikes Shock Absorber Maintenance, Repair, And Operations (Film Subject), Bikes

Id: d534ilYCaMk

Length: 27min 48sec (1668 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 04 2014