quentinludwig

Hi everyone. I'm new to stunts and I have a few questions. After my first few stoppies (40MPH ish) I blew my fork seals. Is that normal or should I get better parts? Or are there settings that I should use on my suspension to avoid this? Maybe I just have crappy forks? Any info would be helpful. Thanks in advance!

661gsxr

street bike suspension isnt designed to handle stoppies or wheelies. both are terrible for the seal. its all a matter of how old the seals are. fork seals blow all the time. mostly cause the weight of the bike is always on them. if you dont set a dirt bike on a center stand the seals will blow in about 7 months maybe more. but they will blow. its just wear and tear. and allll ways go OEM fork seals.

quentinludwig

Cool. Thanks for the response. I was thinking, since I'm just learning all this, maybe it could have been slamming down from a wheelie also. IS it a good idea for me to learn how to fix my forks myself? I'm okay damaging my bike as long as I learn to do cool tricks. Just curious though...Why go OEM replacements?

pyr0niak

9/10 oem > aftermarket. This is true with car parts as well...

661gsxr

ive been a motorcycle mechanic for about 7 years now. replacing the for seals isnt the hardest thing to do but its a bitch. i just pay to have mine done or i know a suspension tech and buy him some beer for the work. oem seal and parts are made specifically for that bike. tolerences are way tighter. aftermarket just cant keep up

Stubbz

youve been a motorcycle mechanic for 7 years but dont know how to change fork seals lol, sorry that sounds really sad. there easy to do and not much of a pain at all, you can make your own tools and fix them yourself for under lik 50 bucks, seals, dust seals, and oil for both forks only run about 50. ive been stuntin since 06, owned a number of different bikes and stunted and stoppied the **** out of everyone of um and never once had to do my own seals on any bike ive owned. cant go out there with stock settings and start bustin stoppies and bottomin out wheelies, with proper setup you shouldnt have any problem.

quentinludwig

Can you tell me what you mean by "the right settings"? I would love to know if there's a way I can set my suspension so that I don't blow my seals as much. Or..Anything I can do to make it a lil better.

Stubbz

you dont want them around the stock oem settings, thats far to soft for doin a lot of stoppies. the rebound adjustment i usually set those all the way to the hard setting then back it off 2 or 3 clicks. say theres 10 clicks between full soft and full hard, oem setting is usually around the middle setting and the manuals will say something like adjust to full hard then back off 5 clicks which would put it in the middle. using that as an example i would go full hard then back off 2 or 3 clicks putting it around the 7 or 8 click towards the hard setting or 2/3 away from full hard.

compression is usually adjusted near where the rebound is by a nut depending on the forks but i do about the same thing for compression also, stiffer but not full stiff. a good rule of thumb you can use is take a zip tie and put it around your fork chrome tube up near the dust seal, make your adjustments then go out and do some stoppies or use the travel of the suspension so it moves the zip tie down, you want that to be 1"- 1/2" from the bottom where the chrome tube goes into the lower foot. if its all the way down to the bottom its to soft and can cause you to bottom out which will damage seals quickly. those are few tricks you can try anyhow.

quentinludwig

Cool thanks. I'll give that a shot.