Grover,
You don't have to take your fork tubes apart to repair/replace the "cowbells" what you do is get down to the triple trees, loosen up the pinch bolts etc and slide the entire upper and lower unit out. The cowbells bolt to the bottom triple tree. Unbolt em, replace em, slide the fork leg back into the triple trees, tighten to torque spec in shop manual, put your front wheel back on, reassemble the fairing stuff you had to remove and you're done. If you want to change out the internals, that's a different thing, but believe me when I say you're gonna like doing that a whole lot better if you take the entire leg out and do the work on a bench instead of dealing with it hanging off your bike. By the way, I had progressives on an FXR once and they really worked. The front end would stiffen up real quick if you dove into a corner, yet regular bumps etc in the road still felt like stock suspension.
B B