Refinishing Lower Fork Casings

Hello, a general question, I've been through my manual and I think I know the answer but it is a Haynes and I'm not sure.
I wish to remove and refinish my lower fork casings, can I do so with the wheel off without triggering a disassembly of the actual fork tubes? Forks, seals and performance are all fine, I just want those lower casings off for some work.
Secondly, ideas to refinish them? What material are they, could they take a powder coat, steel, aluminium?
Thanks a lot.
Dave

If you mean the black bottoms (legs) of the forks, well, no, you would have to disassemble the entire fork's internals, just to work on the legs. Actually, I'm not clear on what you are asking?? You would have to take them apart to powder coat them for sure. Haynes is the least preferred manual amongst those that speak out on that subject here, so maybe a Honda or Clymer manual might be more useful to you in this regard.

I imagine they are aluminum, but can't be sure. I know some have polished the textured surface and then re-painted them with very nice results.

I had my front end apart to do a timing belt so while I was in there I freshened up my forks.

I flushed out the old fluid and let them drain overnight upside down then filled them to the proper level. After that I removed the dust seals and rock deflectors and throughly cleaned everything with a rough scotch brite and brake clean.

Once clean I taped everything up and gave it about 5 coats of rustoleum high performance gloss black. They came out amazing compared to how they looked after 100k of rocks chipping away the paint and I didnt need to completely disassemble them as the seals were still fine and didnt want to disturb them.

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Thank you that is helpful. It sounds like an annoying enough job to disassemble that it should be avoided unless necessary. Thanks again.

Dave Weeks said:

Thank you that is helpful. It sounds like an annoying enough job to disassemble that it should be avoided unless necessary. Thanks again.

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Sounds like they have not been apart yet. They do benefit from an occasional re-build. the bushings wear out overt time and miles. Do you know the history of the front end. Maybe the previous owner had done it.

I've owned it since '06. It has 33000 miles on it, forks have always felt great, and no leakage. I have no problem with the job, especially with all the tutorial help posted, but doing lots of other things this year on it.

If you want a finish similar to the original, try Krylon satin Black.

You don't need to completely dissasemble your forks to refinish them, IMHO. But it sounds like your forks are due for some routine maintenance - flushing & re-filling , at least. The bushings are probably good with only 33K miles on the bike. I disassembled my forks at 45K miles to install a RaceTech GV & E kit, and mine still looked good. But I replaced them as a PM measure. Now I should be good for another 60K miles.

I would at least remove the top plug(s) , and drain & flush the the forks. I had good luck recently using Simple Green to clean out the forks. I finished with a final flush using ATF and then some left over 10W fork oil. Then refilled with the required fork oil weight. You may also consider replacing the fork seals , too. You can pry them out w/o separating the fork tube & fork lower leg.