leaking front fork...FXR

[guido4198]

Anyone have a tutorial on replacing fork seals...
Pulled into the parking lot this morning and noticed a bunch of black oil leaking out from under the rubber boot on the top of my FXR's right fork.
Thanks.....

[hbkeith]

its called service manual

[guido4198]

Thanks for the valuable suggestion.
I have 2 of those, and would like to get some hands on experience based comments from someone who has done this job.

[Lakerat]

I have done the job on mine by following the service manual but left the tubes in the trees. Hope I don't get flamed for my answer.

[Mule]

 Thats how it is done,Jack up bike on a lifting device ,remove axle, front wheel, remove fender, remove allen head bolt from bottom of slider, then pull slider off the fork tube, replace seal and reassemble. Have a drain pan under slider when you remove the allen bolt, or you can drain with the drain screws. You will have to remove the top caps to refill the fork oil. Mule...

[Lakerat]

After you get it back together, clean the bugs off the tubes after every ride. That ain't in the manual.

[L-]

Pretty easy job.  I took the caps off then took the forks out of the trees.  You will need a seal driver to install the new seals.  This is easily made from a piece of PVC pipe.  I got close to the diameter I needed and then split it with a hacksaw and drove the new seals in.   You may want to go up to the next weight in oil and you may want to consider new springs as those are pretty old by now. 

Yep, I made it a point to wipe the dead bugs off at every gas stop. Those cut the seals as they pass through.

L-

[guido4198]

Thanks for the info folks...Question to L.:
After you pulled the slider off the tube, you pull out the old seal...why did you have to split the PVC to drive the new seal into place..?? Seems like you'd just match up the diameters to the outside dimension of the seal and tap her in..Was the splitting to reduce the OD of the PVC tube..??

[L-]

Easy, I just couldn't find the correct size at the little ACE store we have here. I live in a county not a city. Very small place.