Ah, guess what I was doing today? I had fork drain bolts on the GB400. I miss them. So easy!!
Yeah today was pull the forks off, take the tops off and change the oil. The old stuff had gone pretty black but didn't smell nasty. It turned out that the springs aren't stock. Ducati specify a maximum length of 270mm - these were non-progressives which must have been 350+ mm in length. So I'd guess that someone's been in at some point and done a budget fork mod. Not sure about this... however I've been riding on it pretty happily so I'll carry on for now.
Useful notes: most of it's what you'd expect, jack the bike up on stands front and rear, take fairings off, pull forks. The fork yokes can be used in lieu of a vise if you need to unscrew stuff. The specific tool plus plate was very definitely necessary, this job isn't possible without it, but you really want a second set of hands present. Otherwise you're trying to do fiddly stuff while everything is covered in oil and you're having to push down hard. I did have to make up a little pull tool to get the 3-legged push disk out of the fork tops, not a big deal to do this with some shim, tinsnips and pliers.
While I was in, I checked the large connector on the LH front of the bike. Apparently this can pick up water and then green rot inside, causing much fun and games with the bike then running rough. This connector links the ECU and the absolute pressure sensor plus a few other things. Anyway it turned out to be aged but dry and OK, a quick spray of some CRC 2.26 and done.
I also changed out the front temperature sensor. I'd done the rear sensor earlier - the rear talks to the ECU, the front talks to the display on the dash, which has been fairly intermittent and strange numbers lately. Neither was hard to change. Work with bike completely cold, unscrew old sensor, hold finger over open port, whip new sensor in and screw tight. A rag to catch the tiny coolant loss and done, the cooling system doesn't have to be drained unless you want to be absolutely sure about cleaning the port up. The tricky bit is the spring clip retained electrical connector. These turn up in automotive / bike applications quite a bit. I had a lot of trouble getting this to unclip until I worked out the trick: don't try to open the spring, just rotate it, by just over 45 degrees. This can be done with a couple of small flat-blade screwdrivers. Then the connector pulls straight off.
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