8th Gen Fork Seals

Discussion in 'Mechanics Garage' started by Igrok, May 11, 2020.

  1. Igrok

    Igrok New Member

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    scale from 1 to 10 difficulty (No, I don't have any specialized tools) and is it worth $300 for a shop to do it for me?
     
  2. Allyance

    Allyance Insider

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    Leaking? There is a product thats slips between fork and seal that dislodges dirt particles.
     
  3. Terry Smith

    Terry Smith Member

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    Your difficulty and my difficulty might be two different levels...

    Fork seal changes involve:
    Jacking the front end up
    Removing calipers, fender and wheel
    Removing the forks from the triples
    Draining and dismantling the forks and driving the old seals out
    Cleaning the forks
    Driving new seals in
    Refilling with the right amount of oil
    Reassembling the forks
    Refitting the forks
    Refitting the wheel, brakes and fender

    Going flat out, probably 2 hours in labour alone, so if the $300 included the seals and oil, that sounds reasonable.

    Tools needed are basic hand tools, torque wrench, and a seal driver (a piece of 50mm PVC pipe 600mm long works a treat on 43mm forks), oil level gauge.
     
  4. ridervfr

    ridervfr Member

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    most important tool is a seal driving tool K&L makes a nice one. I have used a punch before on other peoples bike, good luck
     
  5. squirrelman

    squirrelman Member

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    without an impact driver getting the fork bottom bolt out can be a real problem. use the old seal placed on top of the new one to prevent damage during installation.
     
  6. ridervfr

    ridervfr Member

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    Yes Squirrelman - An air-impact wrench is nice to have, original poster could get by with an "impact-hammer" with the appropriate long 6mm socket attached to it along with BMFH. If the mechanical gawds are on his side, he may get lucky with just a ratchet and long allen. If said poster does not have the long allen he could caniblalize and bent key allen into a straight and go to town with a slightly smaller hammer. Side Bar: once, many many years ago, I was working on First Wife doing her fork seals for the first time in 20 yrs and 70,000 miles - long story short, I stripped the allen and had to use a drill to drill out the head, (really not that big a deal as once you get the head drilled out, you just use the stanchion as a slide hammer and everything detaches.)
     
  7. Igrok

    Igrok New Member

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    Yep, at this point in time, its worth the $300 to pay someone else with the right tools to do it. I like doing things for myself though. There are a lot of posts on the interwebz about 8th gen forks leaking around 24k miles, so instead of mucking around with it, figured it replace them. Over the top? maybe, but she's worth it.
     
  8. fink

    fink Member

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    New one for me. This is the first posting on 8th gen forkseals leaking that I have read. Try a seal sweep first.
     
  9. squirrelman

    squirrelman Member

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    the oem honda seals are best, so be sure the shop uses only oem, not cheepo chinese imitations. very important ! ask to see the packaging.

    also, be sure they do both forks, not just the one leaking !
     
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  10. ridervfr

    ridervfr Member

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    Yep, OEM is the best, at dealerships its not uncommon for some bad wrenches to just replace the offending fork seal and clean up the non-weepy one.
     
  11. Terry Smith

    Terry Smith Member

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    While you/the shop are in there, why not also get the bushes replaced? These are the bits that allow the forks to slide, and they do wear, and are pretty inexpensive.
     
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  12. Igrok

    Igrok New Member

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    I called both shops in my town and the earliest they can replace the seals are June 29th! Its a 2 hour job... So, SCREW 'EM, I'm doing it myself. I'll use the money I was going to pay them and buy the right tools. :)
     
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