fork seals (rant)

[Wag]

Mine crapped out about that time too.

Check and make sure your fork barrels are not pitted. That will take out a seal pretty quick. You can sand pits out if they're not too bad. Use some super-duper fine paper and it won't harm a thing unless you overdo it or if the pitting is too bad.

I will say, however, my fork seals were bad at about 24,000 miles but the new ones have more than that now and they seem to be doing just fine.

--Wag--

 

[Tufbusa]

$400 seems pretty dang spendy to me for fork seals. If your forks are off the bike it only takes about 20 minutes per fork to change the seals with minimal tools. Oil seal plus dust seal and oil is about $45 per side. I change my own and always keep a couple seals in the tool box just in case. If you were a bit closer than Florida, I'd show you how to do it yourself.

 

[Mr Bogus]

$400 got me seals, 1.10 springs and gold valve kits and the labor.... yea buddy....

 

[Charlesbusa]

If you take your forks off and take it to a suspension shop, you're looking at $100-150.

You should be changing fork oil at least every 2 years, why not polish the shaft and replace the seals as well. Just general maintenance I think

 

[tinmann840]

Good Stuff

 

[hajii]

getting ready to do mine; 06 with 2700 miles...looking at the tools at traxxion dynamics to make life easier...

 

[rdx4me]

Bought a used 02 that has just 3300 miles on it and the fork seals are so bad that after sitting for a couple of months on the lift I initially thought the brake calipers were shot and it was brake fluid dripping down on the front rim!

I'm doing a search right now but does anyone make afternarket seals that hold up longer?

 

[Tufbusa]

I'd buy OEM seals. Just to be sure you get what you need! OEM seals are actually very good. What leads to early leakage can be linked to wheelies or poor maintenance and there is always that odd rock chip on the tube that's a killer on seals.

 

[MST1TED]

well it looks like I get to join the long list of fork seal leakage.
(Did a search on fork seals and got about 6 pages of crap)

My bike is my daily driver ('06) but I don't consider 24,000 miles a lot and I shouldn't be
shelling out money for seals on a 2 year old bike...btw my dealer says $400.

It would be different if this were an isolated incident but as I am not alone...can't
we manufacture a decent 'fn fork that doesn't leak or am I expecting to much.

I really don't think we should consider this "routine maintaince" although since fork seals
are appartently pos we should catagorize it as such.

Not to mention, I'm not really happy about the local yokle at the stealership taking my nose off the bike,
as I've HIDs in there and switchback turnsignals with extra wiring I just know they will screw up.

(Now for the whinning part) Couple this with the impending valve check...for another 3-400 dollars...add rear tire and I'm up to $1000....CRAP. It's not like I got it $ sitting around doing nothing.

Busas are really fairly high maintance, high performance machines...I just don't think additional income should be
wasted on crappie fork seals.

Design them right to begin with...or am I just missing something

Damn I just got a valve check new fork seals and a new front tire for $500
and thought I GOT SCREWED! Guess I was wrong, Oh almost 18k miles.
Hope all goes well.

 

[rdx4me]

I'm definitley pulling my forks off myself. Gotta get the front tire replaced too so I might as well knock that out while I'm at it but anything I can do myself I will.

Reading over the Race Tech site, is it standard to replace both the fork & dust seals every time?

 

[AJAY]

24K miles is NOT especially low for fork seals. Would recommend to most people that they pull the forks and take them to a shop for replacement. The seals are not terribly hard to do, but they are easy to screw up, especially if you're trying to, umm, improvise, like most home mechanics do when they don't have the proper tools.

 

[rdx4me]

Pulling the forks & wheel off is childs play but I'd just as soon take those parts to a shop that has the tools to do the job properly. 1) Because my garage is already full of stuff and 2) If there's a problem with either of those, I have someone to point the finger at to make it right...

 

[winlite]

Just have to do everything myself, even if it takes two or three tries. Want to know my bike inside and out. Don't want to take my stuff to a shop everytime it sneezes.

 

[mike1180]

My 06 seals leaked at 7,000 miles. Yours did good.