Fork seal job

[Rusty McNeil]

Hey guys,

I've done seal jobs on a few different forks but never the Vmax. I should have changed them out when I put in springs and emulators but they only had 9300 miles on them at the time.
They are leaking (one fairly significantly) now and I need to fix this.
I called the Yamaha dealer and since I did not have the microfiche in front of me just had him tell me what I needed to do the job. He comes back with a price for parts only of $168!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF???

So I go online and find the blowup with part numbers and to me it looks like any other seal job where unless I screw up and break something all I should need is the Fork seal itself and the dust seal if I feel like it.
The listed price on these parts for the whole job was like $23


Is this correct?

 

[maleko89]

You just need the oil seals, copper gaskets for damper rod screws at bottom of forks and fork oil. You could get new dust seals but probably not necessary. I've never replaced them on my '89 and there are 61,000+ miles on it. Any-who, dealer is a *******.

 

[Rusty McNeil]

Thanks for the quick response. I'm on my way to buy them now. There's a place not too far away that usually has parts for ANYTHING. Not a dealer and not a harley specialist either which is hard to find in an independant now a days.
Plus he doesn't try to rape you either.

 

[shawn kloker]

Rusty DO NOT BUY THE NEVER LEAK SEALS.Stock work just fine.I just ordered seals for my wifes Fazer.$13 a set from University.

 

[Rusty McNeil]

Thanks Shawn.

I did pick up the seal and fork oil. I paid $35 for 2 quarts of oil and both seals. The important part to me was not having to wait on it as I wanna do it NOW since I have the patience of a 4 year old

I weigh 230 and am running race tech 1.0's with cartridge emulators. The emulators are set at 2.5 turns past where the slop is gone out of the little spring thingie.

I bought 10 weight oil.

Do you think this is the right weight?

I like to run it in the twisties quite a bit but am also known to pull the ocassional wheelie with a few hard landings thrown in.

Not sure how all this works together as I'm a damn good at bolting stuff together but a real novice when it comes to tuning a suspension.

One more question since I'm gonna have this apart.
How much sag or preload should I have?

Consider also that I have 1 3/4" lowering spacers in there with the rebound rod/spring.

Doesn't the upper spacer length determine this? Right now I have about 3/8"-1/2" with me on the bike and feet off the ground and a friend holding the bike from tipping over.

Rusty

 

[shawn kloker]

Rusty,10wt is stock.I like 20 wt. but I might ride different than everyone else.I have a heavy mototcross backround.I think I have 15wt in it now because they didn't have any 20wt.Thicker oil is supposed to slow it down a little.

!0wt should be fine.

The never leak seals I was warning you about have done nothing but leak for everyone that I know including me that tried them.What a crock!I didn;t even get a year out of them.My stock Yamaha ones are going strong,even with a lot of hard landings from wheelies.

I preloaded mine with as much as I could get in there.I forget now how much.I do know its easier to cut them again than to make them longer.

I also was surprised how short the springs were.

 

[mikemax04]

The upper spacer does determine how much preload the forks have. As a rule of thumb, the sag should be about 1/3 of the stock travel but when the forks get lowered internally, this dimension has to be shortened respectively. When checking preload, start with the front tire completely off the ground. Measure the extended length. Now take main stand off and let the weight of the bike along with the rider determine how much the springs have compresses. If more preload is desired, then add washers on top of the tubular spacer.

 

[Rusty McNeil]

Thanks for your replys guys,

I did the job last night and everything went good.
I left the lowering blocks in it and also left the spacer alone since I changed oil weight I did not want to change the spacer at the same time and then try to figure which was the culprit if I didn't Like the results.