Fork Seal Leaking

Well today I was installing my shock sox ( 13" ) ones on my 08 wrr with 1100 miles on it. Left shock seal great, right one not so much. Its leaking oil, might have been cinched to hard on trailer by previous owner. So looks like a fork rebuild.

http://www.riskracing.com/pages/Seal_Doctor_Page.html

Works Great.

thanks.

trailrider77 wrote:

http://www.riskracing.com/pages/Seal_Doctor_Page.html

Works Great.

Agreed.

tying a bike down "too hard" cant damage fork seals. idea of the tie-down blocks is so you can pull up against something hard and the suspension cant move and your straps come off.

the cause will be:
1. dirt/grit under the seal. whether by normal use or having dry crud on the leg and compressing it past the seal (which can slice it open). stop by washing legs properly after each ride (then see 3.), not letting mud dry on them (which will eventually damage the chrome) and if you want some sort of neoprene seal saver boot thingymabobs.
2. not releasing air bleeders (had a yz250 that had so much pressure in the forks when we went to clean them it literally pumped half the fork oil all over the workshop. stop by releasing fork air bleeder before every ride. suspension will feel better for it too.
3. the chrome on the legs dries out, particularly if you clean it well. when its dry it wont let the seal slide and it can cause the sealing lip of the seal to roll up. stop it by wiping the chrome leg with some crc 5.56/wd-40/inox type stuff after cleaning and after long periods sitting.

from those pics it doesnt look too bad at all. try the film negative/Seal Doctor (fantastic tool) tricks and see how you go. you may get another 100km, you may get another 10,000km.

After you have cleaned the fork legs and cleaned out the area between the dust cap and the fork seal carefully...
If you still have a slight leak, you may need to resurface the fork seals.
You can do this by buying some of the very high number (fine fine grit) black colored wet/dry sandpaper.
cut a piece of the sandpaper so that it doesn't fully wrap around the fork and overlap.
Carefully wrap it TIGHTLY around the fork leg with the gritty side OUT,
and with your hand work it up into the fork seal and then try twisting it around and very gently bounce the front end up and down over the sandpaper.
Then pull out the sandpaper from the fork seal.
you will need to wipe down the fork leg to remove any oil that leaked past the sandpaper.

This is worth a try since if it leaks you have to do a fork seal job anyway, so what the heck.
I have never tried this on my WR250R, but I have used this method successfully on my old Kawi ZG1000 and a Suzuki LS650.

This trick was told to me by a wise old man named Pete Springer who used to race the Baja races back when it could be done by regular people without million dollar sponsors.

Thanks for the info, ok I might regret asking this question. LOL. I have not had a dirt bike in 20 years. Should I bleed the air off after every ride, week etc...
I was not aware I needed to do that. Guess I need the get an owners manual.

I use the push button fork bleeders. Makes it easy to release air before, during, and after a ride.

bleed them atleast every ride. we put bleeders on all our personal bikes and i bleed mine every big stop. overkill, but thats just me.

Good info, never did but will get some

Just make sure you always replace the fork bushing on a rebuild alot of people do not know that is what actually makes them leak. if you only replace seals most likely you will be replacing again shortly.