Forks

=Fork Seal Advice=

The following is a snippet from an [|email thread] on the [|Yahoo Groups DL650 mail list] about fork seals.

(in response to a question about a fork seal leak)

//I will suggest two things that might save you from getting seals replaced, and the most it will cost is $5. That's worth a shot, anyway. An initial comment is that this is the first I've read on the list of a fork seal failure, but I can't remember for certain. Having done tons of fork seals over the years, I came to learn that nine times out of ten, there's a piece of grit or bug guts or something that is causing the leak. And cerainly if there is a bit of crud on the seal, getting hot from the sun can increase pressure within the fork leg and that will force oil out of the seal where it will dribble on stuff (especially brake pads) where you don't want it. Here's two things for you to try if you want. One is carefully inspect the fork tube for anything like a bug gut or who-knows-what that could be rubbing against the seal as the tube moves up and down. If so, get it off of there with something soft that won't scratch the fork tube. Less likely but possible is a nick in the tube from a stone. Every time the nick passes down below the seal, it will pick up a little fork oil and carry it up above the seal where over time you will get the dreaded dribbles. This would be unlikely, but if you have a nick sometimes they can be filled with JB Weld and carefully feathered smooth, but we won't go there today. Ok, those two things were cheap. Here's where you've got to spend the $5. Go to to a fairly well supplied bike shop and look for a Motion Pro fork seal cleaner. These are flexible, thin blue pieces of plastic that probably cost 8 cents to make, but they work a heck of a lot better than credit cards, which used to be used till Motion Pro came up with a much better piece of plastic for the job. Anyway, remove the dust cover on top of the fork seal and for starters clean that area with a shop rag and maybe some wd-40. Now look at the directions on the $5 thing you bought. Carefully slide it between the tube and the seal, and then work it up and down as you work it around the diameter of the tube. Since you already spent the big bucks, do this a couple of times. The idea is that you are dislodging the little piece of grit (and it doesn't take much to cause the problem) and stop the leak. After you do this, push the front end up and down a few times and see if the fork tubes are still leaking. Do this several times because what you might see initially is the leftover wd-40 from your cleaning project. Hopefully, after cleaning that away, you no will see no leakage anymore because you dislodged the troublemaker. If this doesn't work, most always you can take the front tubes all apart and clean everything fromt he inside, and that almost always solves the problem too. However, if you are going to go to all the expense of having someone take the tubes apart, then you might as well pound in some news seals, because the real cost here will be the labor, not the parts. Because I'm cheap and have the tools to do seals (mostly on my off-road bikes) I tend to just clean the seals rather than put in new ones. A last thought, if you are on the road and the seals are leaking onto your brakes, lots of times you can wrap a rag around the outside lower fork tube and this will absorb the fork oil before it gets to your brake pads.

More cheap advice :)// //Jim Winterer St. Paul, Minnesota//

(used with permission)