Can't Get New Fork Seals on

[Guest]

So this last weekend I went home to visit my dad's garage with the intention to rebuild my front forks, install progressive springs, and ride back up to school. Well long story short, I got everything dis-assembled, and spent quite a bit of time removing the old seals. They were stuck in the fork lowers quite badly and it took about 3 hours of scraping and using paint stripper to soften the rubber.

Finally I was able to get them out, and hopefully didn't damage my fork lowers in the process. I went to install the new ones and I ran into trouble. There is a little metal lip that the seal has to get under right? No amount of gentle (and not so gentle) tapping could get the seals to slide over this metal lip.

Long story short, the bike is still sitting in my Dad's garage with the forks in pieces and I had to take the train back to school (the humanity).

Now I'm thinking the lip removes somehow from the fork lowers allowing the seal to go under?

The bike in question is an '82 850G. Thanks in advance for your help everyone.

[7981GS]

Take a pick tool and scrape out all rust and debris that is keeping the new seal from seating.
Clean it out with brake cleaner and compressed air, repeat until clean.

Daniel

[BassCliff]

Hi,

Did you check out the two fork seal guides on my little website? I used a length of appropriately sized PVC pipe to push my seals back in. Rather than tap them in with a hammer, it worked better for me to turn the forks over with the PVC pipe on the floor and push the seals in by pushing down on the forks.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

[Tim Tom]

Thanks for the replies. I did remove all the bits of the old seal and a few surface rust spots.

The problem is that there is a lip in the fork that I can't get the new seal past. The lip sticks out about 1/8th of an inch and the seal will not slip past it. Is this lip removable? I know in the manual they talked about a washer going between the seal and the lock rings. Is this what could be the issue? The washer is stuck in place?

The other thing I'm thinking is for some reason a PO put a different fork on the bike at one time. Although this is unlikely I may have the wrong type of seal for the fork.

[chef1366]

Got a pic?
................

[bwringer]

Just a wild guess, but from your description, it sounds as if perhaps the steel "frame" from the old seal is still in there.

[chef1366]

Just a wild guess, but from your description, it sounds as if perhaps the steel "frame" from the old seal is still in there.

That's what I was thinking so I wanted a pic.
There is a lip at the bottom of where the seal rests but not in thd travel.
Possibly you picked all the rubber out of the old seal and left the metal case.

[Tim Tom]

Just a wild guess, but from your description, it sounds as if perhaps the steel "frame" from the old seal is still in there.

Yup. I had a look at the fork lowers this morning before running off to work and I'm pretty sure that's what I did. I feel a little foolish to say the least. But at least now I know what the issue is and can avoid taking the parts to the shop (which I really didn't want to do)

Thanks again GSR. You guys rock.