Alright, so long story short; I’ve got a steel fork to go on my road bike, but it’s got dirt inside the fork tubes which kind of takes the form of small pebbles.
I’ve been trying to get it out using two methods:
[ol]
[li]Basically shaking/knocking the fork to get the pebbles to fall through the vent holes. [/li][li][FONT=Verdana]Submerging the fork in turpentine to try to dissolve the pebbles.[/FONT] [/li][/ol]
The problem with method 1 is I’m at a point now that the remaining pebbles are about the same size or bigger than the vent holes, and they’re just not heavy enough to fall out. I’ve even been using a pin to encourage them out.
The problem with method 2 is after various attempts and getting some dirt to drain out, it didn’t seem to help all that much. I’m not sure how much turps actually gets into the fork.
The only sure fire way of getting it out would be to drill out the vent holes bigger, then braze them up later. But I don’t really want to do that.
So my question is; does anyone have any bright ideas as to how to get the remaining dirt out? Or should I just forget about it and get on with life? About the only time you would know about it is when you turned the bike upside down and you hear the little pebbles rolling up and down the tubes…which probably isn’t going to happen much, it just bugs me that it’s there.
Note; an esteemed forum member suggested it may be internal rust. I don’t think it is, firstly because the fork seems solid (and I’ve been knocking it repeatedly – see method 1 above,) and secondly because I wouldn’t have thought rust would turn into round pebbles. But if anybody has a way of testing the dirt to confirm either way, that would be good.
Sorry if I’ve asked this before…I don’t think I have.
