fork seals

[patrickg450]

I have to be honest they have always been my achilles heal, no matter what bike I have............they suck.

So here my bike sits for a good portion of the winter, I do a new back tire for the upcoming season and do a quick yard lap. Now the right seal is spewing, bad. I clean the seal with the motion pro tool and still. So what are you (dirt or heavy ADV'ers) doing to keep them from leaking? I looked at trying to add pressure releases but where?

input? stories? help?

 

[greg the pole]

The S10 has an open cartridge fork. There's no need to release pressure.
Unlike a dirt bike Dual chamber, or quad chamber, that does have bleeders.
Technically the more pressure you have on the fork seals, the better they seal.

Dirt is causing your oil seals to leak.

Get fork boots (neoprene) and you will not have any issues.
if you look at the pic, the socks clean the tubes as they compress. Very little or no dirt gets in. I have been able to wear out the booties, and not have seal issues (30-40 thou km)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8gb2ef9jbudfdjq/2016-03-25%2017.37.22.jpg?dl=0

 

[patrickg450]

ok........

so why when I do clean the seals I get the "burp" when inserting the tool. If the pressure is do more for the better than why will they drip or leak less than before I burp them? I do have some or bernies aluminum guards on, but I have never been a fan of fork socks. (dirbike experience).

 

[greg the pole]

ok........

so why when I do clean the seals I get the "burp" when inserting the tool. If the pressure is do more for the better than why will they drip or leak less than before I burp them? I do have some or bernies aluminum guards on, but I have never been a fan of fork socks. (dirbike experience).

I've never burped my forks, but I have made sure all the air is gone from my cartridge. My bike has never seen a shop, and serviced by me. Some services better than others ::015::
I am having some issues with my neoprene forks on my ktm 300 (clearance on the fork guards) and may switch them to fork scrapers instead.
That said the booties on the tenere have never given me issues.

 

[BWC]

At 96,000 km now and on my second rebuild of my front forks due to seal leakage. I do use an alluminum front fork guard I built to help keep damage from gravel and mud but even with these I have had seal leaks. After doing mine and helping with a couple other local bikes, along with dirt there is another cause for seal leakage I have found. It seems the metal slide on the outer fork tube can have its wear coating fail. I found one on my bike, and failed coating on both the other bikes. Something to have a close look at when your doing the front forks.
Its always good practice to replace all the internal bushings at the time of seal replacement as any wear allowing the inner tube to move will also cause leaks. Was using Honda brand #5 wt. fork oil and now trying Belray #7wt. to see how that works.

Failed coating on metal slide. New one on the right.

Poor pic. but you can just see at the top the flakes of coating that got between the oil seal and the inner fork tube causing the leak. Seal and fork tube were actually fine.

 

[racer1735]

Mine wasn't as bad....I used a Seal Saver (similar to the Motion Pro tool) to clean the area...man, what seems like a lot of fluid comes out when you go once around the fork with it! Anyway, once done with that I installed a set of Shock Sox. Problem gone!