How to replace your fork

To be able to pull the fork out of your frame's head tube without any trouble, you should follow these steps:

• Hang your bike in the workstand.
• Remove the front wheel. There are various types of fasteners. The most common are thru-axles with hex keys and quick releases. In our case, we had to remove the front wheel with a hex key.
• Now remove the fork's cable routing.
• Before unscrewing the brake caliper, you should secure the pistons with a transport lock.
• Now the brake caliper can be unscrewed.

Tips: After you've unscrewed the brake caliper, you can secure screws, washers, and adapters by sliding an O-ring onto the screw thread. A household rubber band wrapped around both screws also works. This way, nothing can slip off.

To keep the brake caliper from dangling, you can secure it with a strap or a cable tie to the handlebar grip.

Now you can remove the old fork in a few steps. Tip: Before you loosen the stem, you can place a stool under the fork to prevent it from accidentally slipping out of the frame and falling. Alternatively, you can secure it with a strap that you wrap around the fork crown and over the top tube of your frame.

• First, loosen the Ahead cap of the headset and remove it. This also applies to any spacers above the stem.
• After loosening the clamping of the stem on the fork shaft, you can remove the stem along with the handlebar.
• Tie the handlebar and stem securely to the frame with a strap and some padding. This way, they are in a safe position and the cables cannot kink.
• Remove the spacers and the upper parts of the headset, remember the order and set them aside safely.
• Pull the fork downward out of the head tube. Remove the lower headset bearing and also set it aside safely.
• Clean all parts and the inside of the head tube thoroughly with a cloth.

In the third step, you're switching the headset cone from your old to your new fork:

• You can remove the cone from your old suspension fork with a fork cone puller. Clean the cone afterwards.
• Before you install the cone on your new fork, grease the lower part of the shaft tube a little.
• If the old cone is not damaged, you can confidently install it on the shaft tube of the new fork. Use a fork cone installation tool for this!

Tip: Some headsets have a slit cone that you can remove and install without tools.

To make sure your new fork fits your head tube and cockpit, you'll usually have to shorten the steerer tube.

• To figure out how much to shorten the tube, place the lower headset bearing on the steerer tube and then slide the new fork from below into the head tube of your frame, as if you were installing it. Then, from the top, you can slide on the upper parts of the headset, the spacers, and the stem.
• Slightly tighten the stem's clamp bolts so the fork doesn't fall out. Make sure there are no gaps between the parts of the headset, the spacers, and the stem, as well as between the headset and fork crown.
• Now, take a flathead screwdriver or another sharp object and mark directly above the stem. A pencil will also do in many cases. Then, disassemble the fork as described in step 2.
• Now you can shorten the steerer tube either with a pipe cutter or a saw and guide. But careful: don't cut or saw at the mark, but two to three millimeters below it. This is necessary so you can later preload the headset with the Ahead cap.
• Once the fork is shortened, be sure to thoroughly deburr both the inner and outer cut edge, so no burr or sharp edges remain.

Tip: If you've felt in the past that a higher handlebar position might be better for you, a new fork is a good opportunity to try out more spacers under the stem. However, you need to decide this before shortening the tube and take this into account accordingly.

Now you can drive the Ahead star nut into the appropriately shortened steerer tube. If you're using a headset expander (e.g., for a carbon steerer), then install it instead of a star nut.

• It's important that the star nut is driven straight into the tube. Therefore, you should use a corresponding installation tool.
• Place the star nut into the tool and put it on the steerer tube. Then, drive the star nut into the tube with hammer strikes.
• When the star nut is correctly installed, the thread sits about 15 millimeters deep in the tube.

After the preliminary work, you can now install your new fork.

• Grease the head tube area of the upper and lower bearing cups to prevent creaking and squeaking.
• Grease the top side of the lower headset bearing and place it into the bearing cup.
• Now you can slide the fork from below into the frame.
• Again, stack the upper bearing and parts of the headset, your spacers, and the stem onto the steerer tube. You can also grease the bearings additionally. For the stem, you can use assembly paste.
• To prevent the fork from falling down, screw the Ahead cap on right away – but not tightly yet. We'll show you here how to properly preload the headset. Also, clamp the stem onto the steerer tube with the correct torque.
• Now, screw the brake caliper onto the fork. We'll show you here how to align it with the brake disc. Secure the brake line to the fork's guide.
• Almost done. Now, install the front wheel.
• Don't forget to adjust your new fork to you and your riding style! Our suspension setup tips can help: Rebound & Compression: what's what in MTB suspension?