"My god, it's full of scars!" Appologies to Mr. Clarke. Not really.
I don't think these will really impact performance of the forks, and the fork legs themselves show no evidence of this damage. There are some deepish rub marks at the bottom of both legs though. I smoothed those over on the buffer. What really worries me is that both legs have a scratch about 25° around the circumference of the tube, at about the height of the seal when the fork is fully extended. I wonder how they both got identical scratches. I'll check the location of the scratches more carefully when I put it back together. If it's above the seal, I'll probably have to add forks to my shopping list. First, I'll see how long these seals last. Maybe they'll just weep a little oil. If it's below the seal, I'd like to fill the scratch with something before I slide the leg through an installed seal, and risk cutting it. Any ideas? I was thinking of using car wax.
The more leaky seal really pumped it out. Just taking the bike off the center stand made a small puddle. Once I got it out, I saw that the OD had been damaged during installation. The rubber had been scraped up off of the metal can, as if the seal had been driven in one side, then the other, instead of driving it down evenly.
That's all for now. I forgot to check the valve shims. I wonder how tight they are.
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