fork rebuild questions

[debby]

Well, I'm doing the forks on my 77 GS550 this weekend. Seals were totally shot. The forks came apart easily (I love low tech!) and the pieces are all cleaned up now, but there's a couple of things I'd like advice on from you fork gurus...

First, I need something that will work as a 48mm seal driver. I don't have any sockets that are even close and don't want to shell out big bucks for a real seal driver. Any ideas? Would using the old seals and a block of wood work ok? Don't want to ruin the new seals!

Also, I noticed some stone pitting on one of the fork tubes. It's pretty minor but I can definitely feel it with my fingers. Do I need to sand it down? Thought I saw some discussion of how to do that on another thread somewhere - wet sanding with oil and some very fine grit paper (how fine?)

thanks,
Debby

[SqDancerLynn1]

Using the old seal will work also You can find alot of usefull items in the plumming supply at your local hardware store, If the forks are pitted in the area the seal rides?? Not good For a simple fix Clean it very good and fill the pits with JB weld then sand with 2000 grit wet/dry & use a little dish soap with it

[debby]

installing the new seals didn't go so well. In fact I ruined the first one trying to pound it in. It just would not go. I bought seals from that peaksource guy on ebay and they weren't quite right. 11mm thick instead of 13mm, and it's really hard to tell which side is supposed to go up. They appear to have two bottoms if you know what I mean. I must have guessed wrong. Anyway, plan B is to buy some genuine suzuki seals and have the dealer press them in. They've got the tools and skills to do it right, unlike me

[Anonymous]

seals

It sucks when you do something like that, I do it constantly "yeah, I can make do with this" usually ends up costing more money.
When in doubt which way seals go in, 99% of the time if you can imagine what side the pressure is on and visualize the pressure forcing the lip of the seal against the moving part. Usually the garter spring is on the pressure side also...Mike

[debby]

yeah, usually it's obvious. But these had garter springs on *both* sides! Maybe they were originally designed for some industrial application in which there was fluid on each side of the seal. Don't know. I won't be buying any more of them!

Debby