I replaced my own fork bushings and seals (almost)

[Road_Clam]

Well, i'm might proud of myself today as the Clam bike is all back together, and ready for it's maiden voyage of the season. I did a lot of work this past month to correct some last nagging issues, burning some oil, and weeping fork seals.
I decided to take on the fork seals myself, as this would be a first. I've never dissasembled forks before, as i've always left that to my local dealer. But after getting a few tips from my local Suzuki tech, I realized they are not quite as difficult as I thought. The 2 biggest stumbling blocks that present the average weekend mechanic is 1) you need some type of extended tool to hold the internal piston tube from spinning while trying to loosen the 8mm socket head bolt in the lower fork leg. Suzuki uses something like a 3/4" dia. large female Torx stamped into the top of the internal piston. So I got crafty and fabbed a homemade tool out of a piece of 3/4 X 24" PVC electrical condouit pipe. I ground "V" shaped fingers at the end of the pipe. To separate the lower leg from the upper tube you need to remove the 8mm hex bolt and not let the internal piston spin as well. I inserted the pipe, and forcefully pushed down to lock the piston, and used an air impact gun to remove the 8mm bolt. The bolt came out perfect ! Now you just slam the tubes away from each other a few times to extract the upper seal/bushing assembly. There are severall internal pieces that need to be assembled exactly as removed so don't try this unless you have the Suzuki OEM service manuall to reference. I got a little confused re-assembleing the forks, and the manuall saved my butt.
The last obsticle about completing the job is you need a way to force the upper bushing and the seal down into the tight fitting bore. You can ONLY do this right by using a special "fork tube bushing slider" tool. The tool is a heavy and precise large sliding bushing that you literally hammer down the bushing deep into the bore, then you repeate, and press in the seal. I ended up taking my forks to my local dealer, and they let me borrow the sepcial seal/bushing driver tool. This tool makes EASY work of driving in the bushing and seal !!! I took measurements off the tool, and I plan on machining my own seal/bushing driver. If any GSR members have blown fork seals, PM me I will mail you the tools as a favor. With the tools anyone with moderate GS experience can swap out fork seals and bushings in about 4-5 hours. You can save yourself about $125 to $300 from having a dealer perform the job.
Hope this post helped some members who are thinking of this job like I was!

Heres a pic of the ugly, but effective piston holder extension:

[Steve]

Nice job, interesting tool.

I have not replaced any bushings (yet) but I have changed seals a couple of times. I made a tool with a piece of all-thread rod and stacked nuts on each end to be able to turn it. The size of the rods and nuts would depend on what model bike you have. I used 5/8" rod, which gives me 24 mm on the outside of the nuts, perfect for the bkes I was doing.

My seal driver is a piece of 1 1/2" PVC that is 16" long. It was a super-tight fit over the 37 mm fork tubes, so I cut a slit along the length to allow it to expand slightly. I cut one end square usingn a table saw to ensure that it pushed the seal down evenly. Very effective, very cheap.

No pics of the seal driver, but here is the damper holder:




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[GooberPea]

I have new springs/seals and other tidbits on the way. Everybody keeps mentioning bushings in the fork though, and I'll be darned if I can find anything like that in the fiche or otherwise when I look at flatout or bikebandit. Where are they and where can I get them if I need them? Do they call them by another name, or am I just missing the obvious?

FlatOut Fiche

Thanks for the pics of the tools. That'll come in very handy I suspect.

[hampshirehog]

I have new springs/seals and other tidbits on the way. Everybody keeps mentioning bushings in the fork though, and I'll be darned if I can find anything like that in the fiche or otherwise when I look at flatout or bikebandit. Where are they and where can I get them if I need them?

Your bike doesn't have separate bushes - in effect the whole inside of the fork leg is a bush. Later models had a bush that sits just below the seal and another that sits further down. Rather than have to throw away a hole fork leg when it got worn you just replaced the bushes (though if you look after your fork legs they don't wear out very quickly).

With your type of leg you can pop the seal in place before assembling the fork leg - real easy, no need for Steve's length of PVC pipe.

[Road_Clam]

Your bike doesn't have separate bushes - in effect the whole inside of the fork leg is a bush. Later models had a bush that sits just below the seal and another that sits further down. Rather than have to throw away a hole fork leg when it got worn you just replaced the bushes (though if you look after your fork legs they don't wear out very quickly).

With your type of leg you can pop the seal in place before assembling the fork leg - real easy, no need for Steve's length of PVC pipe.

I have read some members were able to pry out the fork seals without actually separating the lower leg from the upper tube. This IMO is dangerous as the seal resides deep in the lower leg bore, and you risk gouging up the seal surface of the inner tube. You should still remove the lower 8mm bolt, and separate the forks then easily remove the seal.

[GooberPea]

Your bike doesn't have separate bushes - in effect the whole inside of the fork leg is a bush. Later models had a bush that sits just below the seal and another that sits further down. Rather than have to throw away a hole fork leg when it got worn you just replaced the bushes (though if you look after your fork legs they don't wear out very quickly).

With your type of leg you can pop the seal in place before assembling the fork leg - real easy, no need for Steve's length of PVC pipe.

THANKS for clearing that up. I thought I was going crazy.