The fork seal on my right-side front fork is stuffed. It's been in there since late 2002, so I guess it's lasted well.
Anyway, I CANNOT get the fork tubes apart. I have removed all the bolts and the snap ring. When I slam the tubes apart to nudge the seal out, the fork makes a metallic "slap" sound rather than the thunk of hitting the seal.
I have read that this means the teflon on the bushings has come off and is bunching up like a wall of goop, which could be jamming the guide bush and slider bush together. When I slap the tubes apart, they stick and I have to whack the fork leg with a hammer to slide again, so the teflon assessment makes sense.
I don't (of all things) have a vice. My next option was to take the fork to a mechanic and just deal with the expense, unless you have some ideas to help me. :-(
I'm assuming you have the cartridge bolt removed as well. Just keep hitting it with the slide hammer action - it should come apart. Sometimes it takes a few hits with a little effort behind each one. Don't be gentile!
Don't take it to a shop, they're just going to do what you're doing now.
I've had this happen before, it sure is annoying. Next time you push them down, twist the fork tube a bit so the bushings hit in a different spot. Then yank as hard as you can... kperham had a really stubborn one once, I think he had to resort to heat to get the fork apart.
Hope it works out easily for ya! Getting them apart and cleaned is the hard part, it's all downhill from there. :fing02:
Im shocked my vfr seals are at 78,000 mile still havent blown..
I use a modified seal saver that keeps bug guts off the leggs, and If you ever look at why a seal leaks, its normally the thin wiper inside the seal spider webs. I also use armoral, lightly driving into the seal wiper, really good for stiction. course thats 5 oil changes too.
[image: View Post]spud786, on 10 September 2010 - 09:59 PM, said:
when you seperate the forks, your driving out the bushings too , so it will clank, Did you take out the bottom bolts of the fork?
Yeah all bolts removed. I'm thinking of using the triple clamps as a vise.
We put a fair amount of muscle into it today though without much luck. I'll try some of this stuff tonight, see if a few hours away from it have helped.
Mount a fork leg in a vice. Use a torch on the lower fork leg, around the seal area. Heat it up enough that you can't touch it. And start jerking it apart as hard as you can. Just have a soft landing zone when it comes apart. Have done this a few times doing dirt bike forks.
+1 on using a blow torch - heat the area around the seal really hot.
I've found that if you put a bar though the axle hole and a piece of wood under the fork base, you can stand on the tube either side of the leg. helps get a really hard upward pull without damaging the leg in a vise. :fing02: The wood underneath is then great to wack the leg down again to get the bush unstuck. :biggrin:
[image: View Post]SEBSPEED, on 10 September 2010 - 10:13 PM, said:
Don't take it to a shop, they're just going to do what you're doing now.
I've had this happen before, it sure is annoying. Next time you push them down, twist the fork tube a bit so the bushings hit in a different spot. Then yank as hard as you can... kperham had a really stubborn one once, I think he had to resort to heat to get the fork apart.
Hope it works out easily for ya! Getting them apart and cleaned is the hard part, it's all downhill from there. :fing02:
Yep, I did! No amount of pulling the tube worked so I bought a small propane torch to heat the area around the seal. That finally did work. Give it a shot!
When it did come apart, the bushings were driven halfway into each other. Of course that was directing the upward force 90 degrees right into the fork lower.
Easy job gone bad...lol... :ohmy:
[image: View Post]KPerham, on 11 September 2010 - 05:50 AM, said:
[image: View Post]SEBSPEED, on 10 September 2010 - 10:13 PM, said:
Don't take it to a shop, they're just going to do what you're doing now.
I've had this happen before, it sure is annoying. Next time you push them down, twist the fork tube a bit so the bushings hit in a different spot. Then yank as hard as you can... kperham had a really stubborn one once, I think he had to resort to heat to get the fork apart.
Hope it works out easily for ya! Getting them apart and cleaned is the hard part, it's all downhill from there. :fing02:
Yep, I did! No amount of pulling the tube worked so I bought a small propane torch to heat the area around the seal. That finally did work. Give it a shot!
When it did come apart, the bushings were driven halfway into each other. Of course that was directing the upward force 90 degrees right into the fork lower.
Easy job gone bad...lol... :ohmy:
Sounds exactly like my problem. I heated it last night with a paint stripper gun, to the point where the seal was starting to smoke and it didn't budge.
[image: View Post]kaldek, on 11 September 2010 - 05:57 PM, said:
[image: View Post]KPerham, on 11 September 2010 - 05:50 AM, said:
[image: View Post]SEBSPEED, on 10 September 2010 - 10:13 PM, said:
Don't take it to a shop, they're just going to do what you're doing now.
I've had this happen before, it sure is annoying. Next time you push them down, twist the fork tube a bit so the bushings hit in a different spot. Then yank as hard as you can... kperham had a really stubborn one once, I think he had to resort to heat to get the fork apart.
Hope it works out easily for ya! Getting them apart and cleaned is the hard part, it's all downhill from there. :fing02:
Yep, I did! No amount of pulling the tube worked so I bought a small propane torch to heat the area around the seal. That finally did work. Give it a shot!
When it did come apart, the bushings were driven halfway into each other. Of course that was directing the upward force 90 degrees right into the fork lower.
Easy job gone bad...lol... :ohmy:
Sounds exactly like my problem. I heated it last night with a paint stripper gun, to the point where the seal was starting to smoke and it didn't budge.
Do I need more heat?
The paint stripper gun is not enough heat fast enough.You need alot of heat real quick around the seal area. You can't let the seal get hot. It has to stay cool. What you are doing is expanding the seal fit area,ei. making it larger in diameter with heat. While the cool seal stays at it's diameter. If it gets hot. The diameter of it gets bigger too, which you don't want. As you found out. What you could do is, when heating the seal area up. Have a ice cold rag wrapped around the upper fork leg next to the seal.
I soaked the fork seal in acetone for four hours, and this allowed me to dig out a lot of the rubber and create space between the metal ring in the seal and the fork tube. I bought a propane torch, heated it up, and bashed it some more. I got as far as the top of the seal about 1mm over the lip of the bottom fork tube, and no matter what I've done since it won't budge one bit.
I'm going to take the forks into the dealer tomorrow, but at the same time I"ll be calling the wreckers because with my luck, the forks will be totally screwed internally and I'll need a new fork assembly.
If the dealer can't get it apart, and if I have to buy a replacement fork assembly, I'll attack the thing with a massive angle grinder, because I just HAVE to see what the cause of all this freakin' pain is.
[image: View Post]kaldek, on 12 September 2010 - 01:52 AM, said:
If the dealer can't get it apart, and if I have to buy a replacement fork assembly, I'll attack the thing with a massive angle grinder, because I just HAVE to see what the cause of all this freakin' pain is.
When I had the same issue worse case senario is a new fork lower only.
My local honda dealer said when another customer had the same issue, they had to slide the inner tube all the way up and cut the bottom off the lower. Finding single unbent legs in a breaker can be tough. See if you can find a lower with bent tube and make a good leg out of your parts.
OK, the fork legs are apart - it took the dealer all of five minutes with their big-ass propane torch. Mine must be too prissy, or perhaps I'm not heating things enough. Anyway it was free, so huzzah!
However, now I find that my backup ring is bent and I need a new one (along with the bushes). However there are no backup rings in stock in Australia and it's a three week wait for a replacement.
I can easily bend this one back into shape - it was only out by 3mm and could be flattened in a vise easy enough. What do you guys think - how exact does a backup ring need to be?
The heavy flat washer? It should be pretty flat. I probably have a few of those floating around somewhere too, let me know if I should send one down under...
[image: View Post]kaldek, on 12 September 2010 - 07:09 PM, said:
OK, the fork legs are apart - it took the dealer all of five minutes with their big-ass propane torch. Mine must be too prissy, or perhaps I'm not heating things enough. Anyway it was free, so huzzah!
However, now I find that my backup ring is bent and I need a new one (along with the bushes). However there are no backup rings in stock in Australia and it's a three week wait for a replacement.
I can easily bend this one back into shape - it was only out by 3mm and could be flattened in a vise easy enough. What do you guys think - how exact does a backup ring need to be?
The backup washer got bent? Man, I'm wondering if that was your problem all along. I can honestly say that with all of the forks I've tanken apart I've never seen that before. I guess there is a first time for everything!
Too bad the shipping isn't faster or I would send you one.
[image: View Post]SEBSPEED, on 12 September 2010 - 07:34 PM, said:
The heavy flat washer? It should be pretty flat. I probably have a few of those floating around somewhere too, let me know if I should send one down under...
LOL - How come you guys have a bunch lying around in your own garages and there doesn't seem to be any in the whole of Australia!
Anyway I've had a look at the service manual and I think flattening the existing ring will do the job. I have one on order anyway so if I need it I'll have one handy. Worst case is I pull the fork apart again in a few weeks.
With as many sets of forks as I service and revalve it helps to keep a bunch of spares around. Luckily those washers haven't changed since the early 80's.
Is the chroming on the legs okay? new seals wont last long without that
Did you ever change the fork oil ?
The oil runs very clean after the first change
I've done 5 oil changes in my bike 78,000 mile, the first at 6,000 mile, the oil was black and sludging, and that was the red Honda oil . I hope my bushing are in much better shape
only the contact side is normally coated with teflon
I've heard the top bushing wears on the VFR, I think its from lack of wheelies, too much interstate drone, where oil doesn get forced up through there enough
[image: View Post]spud786, on 12 September 2010 - 09:23 PM, said:
Is the chroming on the legs okay? new seals wont last long without that
Did you ever change the fork oil ?
I've done 5 oil changes in my bike 78,000 mile, the first at 6,000 mile, the oil was black and sludging, and that was the red Honda oil . I hope my bushing are in much better shape
Yeah the chroming is OK. It needs some work with emery paper to smooth it off as there are a couple of pits. However, it lasted 80,000 miles so I can't complain!
I seem to recall changing the fork oil about 40,000 miles ago.
I have new bushes on order. I should probably order two sets of them, because I changed the fork seal on the left-front fork a few months ago and didn't replace the bushings because they looked OK!
[image: View Post]spud786, on 12 September 2010 - 09:23 PM, said:
I've heard the top bushing wears on the VFR, I think its from lack of wheelies, too much interstate drone, where oil doesn get forced up through there enough
[image: View Post]V4 Rosso, on 13 September 2010 - 04:05 AM, said:
[image: View Post]kaldek, on 12 September 2010 - 09:16 PM, said:
This is after about 125,000 kilometres. The manual says "replace if there is excessive scoring".
:huh: :ohmy: :blink:
I think you're very lucky the chrome on the stanchions is still OK :fing02:
Of course it will be fine - that pic is of the tube bushing! :biggrin: Now, if the slider bushing looks like that as well, then there could be problems. Kaldek, make sure you also check the inner bore of the slider, that bushing you're showing would be wearing the bore, not the tube.
And replace your oil a little more often, wouldja? Last time I did a RaceTech gold valve install, I noticed their documentation says to replace the fork oil every 40-50 hrs... :blink:
Right, so it's all worse than the original problem now, and it's all my fault.
In my...exuberance...in attempting to get the fork apart, I mount it in the triple clamps and whacked it. Hard. With a big hammer.
I appear to have squashed the top of the lower fork tube a tad in places, by about 1 millimetre. This millimetre has gone the only way it could - sideways.
I now cannot even get a dust seal into the fork tube. I've measure it with a vernier caliper, and sure enough the outer diameter of the dust seal is 53.6 millimetres and the inside diameter of the fork tube varies from 53.6 to about 53.0 millimetres.
So...uh....any advice aside from calling me stupid (I know that) and impatient (that too), and lacking the necessary tools (I also know that)?
[image: View Post]kaldek, on 13 September 2010 - 06:27 AM, said:
So...uh....any advice aside from calling me stupid (I know that) and impatient (that too), and lacking the necessary tools (I also know that)?
Get a good measurement on what that bore at the top of the slider is supposed to be, then have a machine shop bore it out. They should be able to run a rod through the end where the cartridge bolt goes, and through a custom plug inside the slider which can rest in a live center - I wouldn't trust that the outer casting is true enough to simply clamp the slider in a 3 or 4 jaw chuck.
Honda apparently don't have ANY of the parts in stock (which is not what they said yesterday). This is Honda Australia - not the dealer. The dealer doesn't have any and neither does the local arm of Honda.
I now have to wait three weeks to replace the bushes on a f*cking fork. This is totally ridiculous.
Can anyone over there in the USA confirm if they can help me get the following parts?
Guide Bush: 51414-MCF-003
Backup Ring: 51412-KA4-711
Slider Bush: 51415-MBW-E11
I'll pay for purchase and shipping (via Paypal or bank transfer) if you can get them FedEx'd to me! Naturally I'm only interested if the parts are available this week so they were mailed by Friday or so.
If it falls through with Seb let me know, I also keep these parts on hand at all times.
I suggest replacing the fork oil every 3-4 years or about 20,000 miles. If you ride really hard (i.e. track) then more often, but for the typical street rider more often isn't necessary.