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Old August 8th, 2018, 06:47 PM   #1
corksil
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Fork seals leaking after hard bumpy ride?

Surely this has been discussed before but the forum has been a little slow lately so figured I'd post it for a quick opinion or two.

I have rebuilt my forks 3 times now and seem to have found an excellent combination of preload/spring-tension/oil-level/oil-weight.

The road I use to test the forks is extremely rough. Year and years of patched potholes, it makes your vision blurry and you need to clench your jaw so your teeth don't rattle. It's very bumpy. Very. That's my point.

So after blasting down it and back at 37mph and after nailing a few speed bumps at 50 or 60mph (not joking) ---- my right fork seal started leaking. All the way down the lower tube and almost onto the brakes before I limped it home.

The bike went through an absolute suspension torture test. The front seems 100% dialed in and feels perfect. Yet the fork seal leaked. Don't think I lost much fluid. Planning on riding the bike more to see if it leaks more.

Maybe it only leaked because I nailed a few speed bumps at 60mph.

I don't think anything in there was improperly installed, it's all mechanically sound.

No scratches or gouges on the fork tube.

Why did it leak? Time will tell if it leaks more.

Did I exceed what this bike was mechanically engineered to do?

Maybe the design of these forks simply cannot handle the abuse I put them through.

Any thoughts? Thanks!
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Old August 8th, 2018, 07:20 PM   #2
Ceeloo Yello
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What was the quality of the seals? I got some cheap china seals off of amazon and put in the emulators as well as new springs and heavier fluid last year and still no leaks.
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Old August 9th, 2018, 02:13 AM   #3
Burphel
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Well, it ain't meant to be a dirtbike. Any time you're putting it through that much abuse, there's a chance you'll blow a seal. Especially if you're running a higher oil level/smaller air gap. If you're happy with the setup otherwise, I'd say replace the seal, top up the oil, and go ride it like a street bike instead of a supermoto.
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Old August 21st, 2018, 10:13 PM   #4
corksil
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Thank you both for the advice.

The bike definitely isn't a supermoto. Nailing speed bumps at speed is a bad idea and I was asking for trouble.

Does anyone know what the oem 09' fork seal sizes are?

Quote:
should have fitted as they are size 37x50x11mm (FDK: 011/069)
..... does that sound correct?

Thanks!
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