I was reassembling the forks after a rebuild and got stuck. Looking from the bottom upwards at the fork internals, which way does the piston face on the damper rod? The positions are depicted in the 2 photos below.

This is a total guess but 'i think' it goes as in the second pic so the oil is trapped as well as it can to stop bottoming out with a Clang. Other way up & it won't be effective. See what the others say.

Looks like I may have stumped the audience. For a better understanding I've attached a photo of the fork parts diagram and the part in question is #6.

I think you are having a similar issue as I did a while back and found this post from Mark - DT3 to be super helpful

www.yamaha-enduros.com/index.php/forums/...r-reinstall-question

The fork damper rod and piston look a bit different on the CT2 (my bike) and those of the DT3. Unfortunately my fork pistons do not have an external bevel like those featured in Mark-DT3's pictures. The difference between each end of the fork piston is the internal diameter. I'll do a bit of extrapolating here, Mark -DT3's first schematic indicates that the external bevel (which I do not have) is on same end as the larger internal diameter of the piston and on the the opposite end of the smaller internal diameter. So the larger internal diameter faces upward and the smaller internal diameter faces down? Can someone confirm this?

Although some of these fork pistons have exterior bevels and some do not, they all have similar setups above them on the cylinder (damper rod). So the question is, which end faces up. Mark-DT3 had success with his exterior beveled end facing up. In the diagram of the DT3 piston (attached) the exterior beveled end had the larger interior diameter. It makes sense that the larger interior opening would face the damping washers to allow more oil to flow. This all being said, I'll install my pistons with the larger interior diameter facing up and smaller interior diameter with the interior bevel facing down (attached photo). Thank you to Dirtboy, RT325 and ultimately Mark-DT3 for your help!