I recently purchased a pair of Ohlins front fork springs. (Coz Stig made me) After just completing doing the shim service last week with the good help of Roadrunner. Today I set my stall out to fit the new springs into the forks. I have a set routine as we all do. I always slightly undo everything before I chock the bike up. I started to drop the left fork through the yoke taking care to pull the circlip spring out of the groove in the fork and pushing the large rubber washer and also the large metal washer up to the top of the forks to remove from the fork. I put the rubber washer and metal washer in a safe place on the carpeted garage floor and then went for the get the circlip and lo and behold it had disappeared out of sight. For the next two hours my wife and myself went through my garage and looked in every nook and cranny on the bike searching for the circlip. It was nowhere to be found
I was absolutely dumfounded so I gave up in the end. I continued with what I was trying to achieve and got the new springs in and started rebuilding everything back to how it was. I had the forks clamped between two bits of wood in the vice and whilst I was screwing in the large nut on the top of the forks I noticed something moving at the top of the fork. Looking closer the circlip had slipped into the groove under the nut. I have to say I did use some very bad language for the next 5 minutes.I didn't have to write this embarrasing admission but I thought it may help others who may want to do some work on their forks. Have a look at the photo and see where it ended up. God what a day.
PS as Stig mentioned. I did a test with the other circlip to see what route it would take if it fell to the floor. I tested it 6 times and the circlip fell on the carpet in front of me. On the 7th attempt of letting go of it it fell behind the air intake tube and disappeared out of sight. After looking everywhere for it, that one had gone too. I took the infill panel off to find nothing. I went to pick up a socket off the floor when I noticed the circlip i had just lost had rolled behind the wooden chocks. Can someone explain to me how these strange things happen? 
