Home made fork seal cleaner works!

[wayne z]

OK, my '85 barnfind had very leaky fork seals,the lower legs were stained brown and the brakes were gummy with oil.

I saw a Utube vid about making and using a tool made from hard clear plastic packaging along with the methods of use.

So I tried it while I had the front wheel off. I found that the plastic from a windex type cleaner bottle is the best for this tool for it is a laminated 3 layer plastic, very thin and tougher then the packaging plastic. Also the bottle plastic has a natural curved shape that helps fit against the fork tube. I just used small nail scissors to cut it out.

There was no air pressure in the forks , and I slipped the tool about 5/8" down in the seal and dragged it around each tube 3 times. I would spray wd40 and wipe it out clean after doing each pass.

After changing fork oil and a test ride, the right seal quit leaking and the left one still leaked.

So I did it again, this time with 10 lbs air in the forks. It slobbered some oil from the pressure but I think this
helped flush the dirt from the seal. After a long test ride, No oil on the forks!

 

[marsmax85]

Nice tip!! Thanks

 

[DMAN999]

Nice tip, I've seen a few posts about doing that from a soda bottle.
It's basically a home made Seal Mate:
http://sealmate.net/

 

[dannymax]

Old dirt bike racers trick...works like a charm! Good going. unk:

 

[wayne z]

Nice tip, I've seen a few posts about doing that from a soda bottle.
It's basically a home made Seal Mate:
http://sealmate.net/

Yes , I decided it was quicker and easier to make my own at the moment I decided to do the seal cleaning. I copied the shape from the pics in their ad.:biglaugh:

 

[sdt354]

I've used old 35mm film slides,trimmed like a sealmate,with success, but what ever works is best.

 

[jfeagins]

I would think 30 year old rubber seals would be leaking due to the degraded condition of the rubber, rather than both sides having been parked with bug/dirt residue impeding their performance. I'm surprised this fixed the leaks in this case. And, if I were a betting man, I'd say it's a safe bet you should go ahead and order a couple of fork seals to put on the shelf if you intend to do much riding with this barn find after you get it in good working order, because.......well, just because.....and they aren't that expensive.