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DIY Damping Rod Tool for my 79 GS850G

Dan

Dan

Forum Newbie
I am going to make my own Damping Rod Tool, what size nut will fit into the Damping Rod end to hold it when disassembling my forks ?

should the nut be 17mm or 19mm from flat side to flat side ?
 
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A slightly modified already-broken broom handle worked for me.
ZCkjgL6h.jpg
 
salty_monk said:
3/4" or 19mm
Click to expand...
Yup.

I have a piece of 1/2"-13 all-thread with a standard 3/4" across the flats nut spot-welded in place on one end for GS forks, and a "heavy duty" nut that's 7/8" (22mm) across the flats spot-welded to the other end that fits other bikes. (exactly which ones, I don't remember... KLRs? Older V-Stroms?)

You can also get different size nuts for 5/8"-11 threaded rod, so I've done the same thing with nuts that are 15/16" (24mm) across the flats and 7/8" (22mm). IIRC, you can also get 1-1/16" (27mm) nuts in 5/8"-11, but I don't know if that is ever actually used in forks.
 
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i saw one guy who didn't even cut a taper in the broom stick. he just shoved the rounded end up against the damper rod and cut the handle off at just the right length so he could screw in the caps partially and it would lock everything up tight inside
 
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Yeah. I’m sure I didn’t need to do any precise cutting of the broom handle. But I felt that the smooth butt-end of the broom handle was too smooth to bite. As you can see in my pic, the top end of my damper rod is a round hole, not hex-sides. Some other models are like this too. The way I made it, I put the part of the handle that protrudes from the fork in a vice, held the fork-lower with my left hand to keep it from spinning, applying force toward the vice, and ran the impact driver with the right hand. I didn’t try it with just the impact. Some say that alone will do the trick without anything to hold the damper rod still. IDK, didn’t try.
 
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The hex on the bottom of a common spark plug socket is the correct size. Use a long extension, or stack a few, to get the length you need, and put the extension in backwards.

Screenshot 2026-06-07 034744.png
 
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