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Leaky fork :-(


4li3nVFR

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Once again I find myself consulting the forums in search of a better solution, so thanks in advance for any advice/pointers. My left fork has decided to puke its contents after letting the local Honda Stealership replace the seals less than one year ago.  I've probably only put 600 or 700 miles on the bike since then under normal driving conditions so I don't understand why it's leaking.  Anyway the stealership has informed me that the bushings are worn and that is what is causing the leak.  I asked why the bushings weren't replaced 10 months ago along with the seals and all I got for a response was a shoulder shrug since it is a different service manager now.  In addition to the shoulder shrug I got a wonderful estimate of $1200 to fix the forks and bleed the front brakes to remedy too much lever travel.   $1200....😕  ?  I checked my calendar and it wasn't April 1st so I guess he was serious.  I have worked on my bikes in the past but have no experience with forks/suspension repair, so can anyone point to a comprehensive how-to vid or guide for a dummy who has been riding for almost 40 years but never messed with forks?  Thank you my friends.

 

Oh yeah I forgot:  6th Gen '05 VFR800 with ABS barely broken in with only 11K miles 😁

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Looking around for the how-to.  Meanwhile, are you able to remove your forks yourself, and leave the bike balanced on the center stand wherever you park it?  If so, hardest part is really over.  The seals and bushings are actually really easy to change.  Goes something like this if you want to consider DIY, and I'll add some extra steps:

 

* Buy the parts you need first: seals, bushings, and the gasket/crush washer for the bottom of the fork.

 

- Loosen the top caps before you remove the forks from the upper triple crown.

- Remove the forks (remove front wheel, front fender, brakes, and make sure something is holding up the brakes so they're not stretching the lines...I put mine on a 1' tall tool case).

- Remove the stanchion protectors (plastic shields).

- Remove the top cap, push stanchion down.  The top cap should pull up the damper rod.  You should see some flat sections you can get a wrench around, along with the upper spring perch (has a notch so you can just take it out).  Remove spring perch, unscrew top cap from damper rod and put all of these things aside.

- Pull springs out.

- Invert fork and dump oil in a container.  If your dealership did their job...oil shouldn't look that bad.

- Possibly using an impact wrench, possibly not, unscrew the 6mm Allen bolt at the bottom of the fork.  The damper rod should come out.

 

Here comes the surprisingly easy part!  Pull up on the stanchion, and the bushings and upper seals will come out.  May have to knock it a few times like a slide hammer.

 

Clean out all of the parts really well.  This is a good time to consider revalving with Racetech if you haven't done it, or changing fork springs.  If you revalve, one OBTW is polish the damper rod really well while you've got the damper apart.  But no reason to disassemble damper if youre not revalving, just blast it clean with something like White Lightning.

 

Bonus steps: I forget who told me to do this, but now is a great time to resurface your stanchions.  Clean off the rust and wet sand (I used isopropyl, steel wool, and 1000 grit) the pits flat.  Then use phosphoric acid to convert the rust, and then seal with expoxy ( I wiped it over, then wiped it off real quickly several times until I got it very flat.  Did not leave it on the chrome long enough to turn hard and require sanding or something later).  

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^^^  That. 

 

Or, if you really want to do the best mod for your bike, have Jamie Daugherty re-work your forks and shock to suit your weight and riding style.  He will replace everything as well as custom valve it to match new linear springs.

 

As for servicing the bike, find a place you can for sure not need to move it and get it propped up as below.  I used a piece of wood to evenly distribute the load on the headers and sneaked the scissor jack out of the GF's Camry to hold it in place.  You can do it! 

 

 

f1425152.jpg

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Or send them to a reputable place, like Thermosman. No where near $1200, done right the first time. I have 20k on mine from him and they are superb. I had him adjust the shims. i'd demand the $ back from the dealer. 

 

Dealers suck these days. It wasn't always like that. They touched my track bike forks a few years back and I got them home and they screwed up the internals. Monkeys. We live with monkeys among us. 😛

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AFAIK the reasons forks seals leak are:

1. Sinple wear and tear, but you'd expect 10's of thousands of km from a set

2. Rock damage to the stanchions, they cause craters with raised edges that cut seals, and cut new seals quickly if not addressed

3. Time sitting still; strangely enough, for bikes that don't get used enough the seals maybe dry out and stop sealing. Hasn't happened to me yet...

4. A piece of grit getting stuck and holding a seal open; these can be dislodged sometimes with a really fine feeler gauge inserted between the stanchion and seal

 

But you need to find out why the seal is leaking first. 

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The bushing are not bad at 11k. If they were bad, you would feel it. $1200 is robbery! VFR fork seals are easy, I did my first this past year with a little help from the Tube.  JUST DO IT!

 

I just took my new Tiger 660 in for its first service thinking that it is an oil change and it will make them happy. An hour and a half later, I got a bill for $267.41. The labor rate is $135/hr. Oil was $17.80/qt.  Now that I can afford nice things, I can't afford to have them.

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I suspect the dealer changed the outer seal but not inner.  Some oil film gets past my new seals but not like old seals.  See part 21:

EC247248-A4C8-450C-B2A5-F3C94BDD7A29.jpeg.198dadc8649225798f9dd680459966c0.jpeg

 

One other reason "why" is the original seals could have just aged out, and in addition to grit allowed water and other contaminants in.  And whatever is still in there is still in there.  It occurs to me the dealership could have (don't know why they would do this, but...) just replaced the seals or just upper and not oil and whatnot.  Or, they could have replaced the oil but not cleaned out the bottom.  
 

FYSA, when I got my bike back in 2020 and serviced the forks, the last time they had been apart was in 2007 when I revalved them.  I want to say the other two owners put about 10,000 beginner and commuting miles on it past whatever I did after that.  The bottom was something like crude oil and the seals were not awesome.  (Bike was clearly parked outside in the weather and the upper seals were cracking...so there is that.)

 

I only know this because I completely disassembled the fork and looked at the damper and bottom of the lowers to clean them out.  There are two dozen different versions of "servicing" forks for oil change or maybe outer seal swap that would not lead you to clean out the bottom of the fork.  I think I've even done the oil change with a siphon method without removing the forks.  Let alone a technician who's doing a bunch of things today and maybe isn't going to take the time you or I would to make sure it's clean and grit-free after removing the sludge.

 

I guess it's possible that your bushings are bad enough to misalign your seals enough to let oil out and other things in.  But even my bushings weren't that bad after pumping sludge, and I think you would notice other problems.

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The hollow VFR rear axle presents a creative opportunity for keeping the front end off the ground for service;

 

73C2B734-F285-471A-950A-C8CBF4DC50FC.jpeg

 

IIRC I had 35 lbs on each side. If the front end stays up comfortably with the bike complete it only gets more stable as you remove parts.

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^^^^ Still like the creativity of the above, I'm gonna try that next time I need the front end in the air.... :fing02:

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Hey Dangeruss. Your black 5gen with the yellow VFR emblem looks fantastic. Got any nice pics of her in one piece?

Great way of keeping ya bike healthy with a workout of weights! :beer:

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On 4/10/2022 at 2:29 AM, Cogswell said:

Oh for a garage with this much space...😭

 

 

f1425152.jpg

 

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15 hours ago, Grum said:

Hey Dangeruss. Your black 5gen with the yellow VFR emblem looks fantastic. Got any nice pics of her in one piece?

Great way of keeping ya bike healthy with a workout of weights! :beer:

Thanks, pic attached. Last time we moved my wife said I would never use those weights again so I was happy to prove her wrong.

OP Sorry for the hijack.

 

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22 hours ago, Dangeruss said:

The hollow VFR rear axle presents a creative opportunity for keeping the front end off the ground for service;

 

73C2B734-F285-471A-950A-C8CBF4DC50FC.jpeg

 

IIRC I had 35 lbs on each side. If the front end stays up comfortably with the bike complete it only gets more stable as you remove parts.

Similar...on my 6th gen I put a 20 lb or so dumb bell in each saddlebag, and a tool case or another weight on the back seat.  Since there is a tiny chance of earthquakes here, if it's going to be a long time, I will put something under the front of the engine case as well.

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On 4/15/2022 at 5:34 PM, 4li3nVFR said:

OK thanx for the info guys.  bmart how much did Thermosman charge you for the rebuild?  

It will depend on what he does. Certainly worth a call or e-mail. IMHO, there's no one better. 

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