If you can change yout motor oil, and ride a wheelie, you should be capable of changing seals..


Its like a 1 hour job, maybe 2 if your slow

Get a manual for your bike, and it'll have the entire fork rebuild process listed with pictures..

Its really easy..

 

dont you need special tools to replace seals?

 

A fork seal driver

but you can make one out of a pvc pipe



I made mine for like $3 at home depot

 

Well... i'm rolling just as long as w/ good seals right now so ain't no way in hell i'm tearin apart the front end more than once per season. After this change I'm not takin them off again.

I'm gonna get a set of those "seal savers" and hope for the best. I still can't understand it though.... these were absolutely MINTY MINT MINT Brandzy newzy. Not a scratch or blemish on the tubes.

I always hear thicker fluid is good... : I guess I'll just go w/ same weight. I really don't know... I'm just startin to get into the whole "payin attention to my suspension settings"

It does make a big difference though. After I cranked everything down to full tight and couldn't roll for ****... I turned the rebound out a 1/2 turn and the compression out 1/4... then pre-load 1 line showing.

Same on the rear shock.... the weight transfer is sooooooo freekin smooth now, w/ no excess play.

I'm hittin what used to take the top of 2nd... at the top of 1st (200ft)... w/ only about 100ft approach.

Not impressive to most... but for me it's huge. And that's EXACTLY what I've been working for.... slow TALL rolls from slow-er short approaches.

I forsee easilly rolling at least 400-500ft this season from mid to top 3rd gear (300ft approach).

That's what the service manual says... and that's what I've always thought.

Good to know

 

What about the spring collar holder and fork damper holder? I think there was a damper rod holder as well in there? Honda would charge a fortune for those tools. **** paying 150 bucks labour for a 2 hour job. Gotta learn how

 

yeah i fix my seals i gotta figure out the best dial in setup for mine. im not 100% happy with how i had it-

 

that's because you hear it from people that don't build suspensions.

in all honesty, suspension fluids all come from 5wt. Any other weights are a derivitive of 5wt. they change the polymers in there to get the deserved "weight" from that 5wt. now when going heavier, that means they have to alter the 5 wt with a different polymer. Because they aren't in true form, they break down really easily and once heated generally don't act like a true 10wt or whatever it is. so basically if you stick iwth the original 5wt it is hte most stable and wo'nt change once heated.

this is why almost all manufacturers use 5wt standard (and why race teams use 5 wt).

 

the 1000rr factory oil is a 10wt

so that's what I bought.

 

for some reason I blew my 954 fork seals for the 3rd time within a year, now I keep sweeping off the oil whenever I take a break during practice.
I realy don´t know the reason cause meanwhile I set the wheelies down soft, I do a lot of stoppies but that can´t be the reason, fork bushings are also brand new.
It has always been the left side but now it´s leaking at both sides at the same time, **** sucks, and I just replaced them 5 weeks ago.
Guess it´s that cheap aftermarket **** that blows, next week I´m gonna get me a set of OEM fork seals at Honda, hope they are better....

 

Spoke with my very pissed friend about his 1000rr

He has had it about a month, put around 500 miles on it.. He doesn't stunt.. Only rips the occasional highwaywheelie, and always sets it down easy.

His seals are blown and he is heated about it.

 

Lin has 1000rr and I don't think i've ever seen him say his seals were blown. Maybe stick some heavier weight fluid that should help

 

You don't need those for 929/954 forks, I don't know about 1000rr forks.

But for 929/954 forks you can't build a PVC fork seal driver as easy towellie. With the f4i forks you can slide a PVC pipe over the tubes and hit the seals, but with inverted forks you can't slide anything over the leg like that, so you need something that can clamp on.

For my 954 forks I just went and bought the driver tool from Honda, it was like $60.

 

you cut it in half duh!

 

Yah, my PVC drivers were cut in half, since I couldn't find the right diameter tube (my tube was a bit too small). But the PVC isn't very heavy and there's a lot of friction due to them being wrapped pretty tight with duct tape (so they'd conform to the tube and hit the seal right). I just didn't feel I could get enough power in that small area under those circumstances

 

Sometimes you get a bike that was built on a Friday. I love my RR for endos. 4000 miles and no problems yet. But yeah, the inverted forks are crazy easy to rebuild. I rebuilt my 04 R1 without even sliding the tubes off the bike. No special tools. I used the old seals to tap the new ones into place. This is a dumb question I'm sure but what's mousetraping?

 

when your in a wheelie and the bike shuts off or you stall out and the front end slams down very hard.

 

That was my guess.

 

ya I cut them in half

and also, I used a hose clamp. Kinda makes its a pain in the *** since you gotta get teh hose clamp in the perfect posisiton, but I managed to make it work on both my f4i and a friends 600rr (never done 1000rr's thought, but I'm guessing they are close to 600rr inverted)



edit: oh ya,the pvc I used was a hair too big also.

I just took my fork seals into the hardware store, and got the closest peice of pvc I could

Then I used a dremel, to cut about 8 slits into it length wise, that way the pvc could pull together to a smaller size.


I think a better, but more expensive option, would be to look for a thin walled metal pipe.. Surely there has to be a metal pipe out there that'll fit the seals perfect

But then you'll probably end up spending $10-$30 on metal, and it'll be a pain to slice the whole thing in half

 

4000 miles is nothing..

For someone thats rides a LOT, 4000 miles is like 2 months out of the dealership..

I know the first year I rode my f4i, I put a lil over 10k on it.. and I didn't even feel like I rode it THAT much

 

can ya explain exactly how you do it? I'm about to take these apart... it's rainy here today.