Threaded Fork Removal

I heard a creaking noise while riding my bike today. The bike has decent parts on it and I assembled it all myself, so I really couldn't figure it out until I saw this:

 

 One of the fork blades has a hairline crack in it. Time to get a cromoly one. In the meantime I thought I'd do a little tutorial on how to swap out a damaged fork. In the next post I'll also show you how to adjust the bearings that hold the fork in place. Anyway first you should remove the front wheel. Next remove anything else attached to the fork, like brakes, computers, racks, fenders, whatever. Road caliper brakes are held on by a nut on the back of the fork crown. Cantilever/V-brakes have a bolt on the front side of each brake arm. Disc brake calipers usually have 2 bolts on the side of the fork blade. You also need to remove the handlebar stem:

I didn't have to remove any of the cables, which is nice. Now with everything out it's time to remove the fork. For a threaded fork you do this by unscrewing the headset locknut and top race:

This is most easily done with a big adjustable wrench on the top nut while holding the top race with a headset wrench if it has wrench flats. This bike's top race doesn't have wrench flats, so I use a vice grip with a towel wrapped around the race to hold it in place. The towel protects the finish from the jaws of the vice grip. With both of these removed, the fork can slide out:

 

Keep track of any spacers, reflector brackets, or cantilever brake cable stops that might also be sandwiched between the two nuts on top. Once the fork is out you should pull the ball bearings out of the headset cups, and clean the bearing surfaces:

I'll show you how to install a new fork in my next post. I bought this one used. Never again.