Big leak all of a sudden... rear shock?

So I did about ten miles of desert riding (Johnson Valley) a couple weeks ago. Put the bike away, seemed fine.

Before riding again I cleaned and lubed the chain so the sand wouldn't eat my sprockets. Couple days later I noticed this giant puddle had formed under the bike:


Figured I just over-lubed so I cleaned it up and didn't think anything of it. But I went back to the garage today and hey, the puddle is bigger. Oil and brake fluids are fine. But the shock sure does look wet. Bike's got about 3,000 miles on it.







Guess I need a new shock? Any idea what might have happened? Seems a little young to have the seals fail.

Looks like a good excuse to send the shock to go race or get a local suspension shop to install a gold valve kit to me.

The shock can be rebuilt, you need to get the seal head from race tech as they are the only ones making one, go race would have them too.

3000 miles doesn't seam like a lot of miles on the shock but the shock isn't very high quality like it is on most dirt bikes which is why race tech made a higher quality seal head for it.

I took my WRR in to a suspension shop this winter for new springs and valves because I was looking for a better off-road riding experience. When I dropped it off the tech looked at the rear shock, wiped his finger on it and came away with some wetness. He held the finger up for me to see and said "It looks like your shock seal is blown, so this is good timing on the rebuild." My bike only had 2500 miles on it. When I picked it up later he confirmed that the seals had failed and I was riding mostly on just the spring. I don't know how long that had been going on. I never had the Big Leakage like you.

Here's another old thread where a couple of WRX riders report similar problems at 3700 and 3900 miles. I imagine there are others out there too.

If it's any consolation I really love my recently rebuilt shock with Race Tech Gold Valving, new seal head, and heavier spring. The sky is bluer and the sun is brighter. Most importantly the trails are smoother.

Interesting. Mine is an '08 so it's one of the first WRRs, which seem to be what folks are beefing with on that other thread.

Thanks for the tips so far, will give the Go Race folks a call soon. If anyone else has seen similar I'd be curious to hear about it!

The shock on my '12 failed in the first year and was replaced under warranty.  I forget the symptom but it wasn't a huge puddle of oil--it might just just stopped dampening?  The replacement has held up fine--I had the oil replaced last year (at ~5.5k miles?) and had the valving modified slightly but it's been fine otherwise.  I use by bike as a plated dirt bike so it seems a lot of heavy use albeit relatively low miles. The bike has ~8.5k miles on it now, many of them with 14/51 gearing so actual mileage is less.

-morgan

roadrover wrote:

Interesting. Mine is an '08 so it's one of the first WRRs, which seem to be what folks are beefing with on that other thread.

Thanks for the tips so far, will give the Go Race folks a call soon. If anyone else has seen similar I'd be curious to hear about it!

According to the folks at Go-Race, the seal Yamaha uses is on the large side for the size of the shaft. They replace the seal head and use a completely different seal that's in it's proper range for shaft diameter to cure it. Race Tech replaces the seal head also according to the tech I spoke with, for the same reason.

Pretty sure go race is using race techs seal head, not that he couldn't build one himself but why bother when you can just order it.

Race tech told me to run the stock seal head for a year then change to the upgraded one when servicing my shock since I installed their gold valves in a brand new shock. They figured the stock seal would last that long but its not very good and doesn't last for a lot of years like other shocks plus it has a ton of stickion.

You can get just seals for the new seal head through race tech if you ever need to rebuild it again, I've done that with other bikes, its cheaper than buying the whole seal head.

Can someone give me an idea about how much this cost?

About 50 bucks for parts and oil if you do it yourself, the trouble is you have to get the seal head through race tech or go race as its not easy to get like the one for most other bikes you can order at the local dealer and have in 3 days.

About 150-200 if you take it to a shop for a straight up rebuild, revalving while its getting rebuilt adds to the cost, you should contact gorace for a price on that.

Biglake wrote:

Pretty sure go race is using race techs seal head, not that he couldn't build one himself but why bother when you can just order it.

Go Race is using KYB and Race Tech is using Showa shock seal heads.

mcdoudlehopper wrote:

Can someone give me an idea about how much this cost?

For just the seal head?  $70 for the KYB seal head from Go Race or $60 for the Showa setup from Race Tech.  More info for suspension parts and installation prices are on the WR pages for both companies.  My local Race Tech shop was similar to the prices for having the work done at Race Tech.

http://racetech.com/ProductSearch/1/Yamaha/WR250R/2011
http://go-race.com/yamaha-wr-suspension/

awesome! I'm going to look into this further this summer