Fork oil & Dust Seals - OEM or Aftermarket

[Guest]

Like the title says, which is best?
i saw aftermarket set for 1/2 the price of OEM but there are also more expensive sets.

Thanks
Eran

[BassCliff]

Hi,

Generally the aftermarket fork seals will not last nearly as long as OEM. I put some K&L seals in my forks about 3 years ago and so far, so good. But I wish I would have gotten OEM.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

[frankenwabbit]

I ended up with the K&L's. I've also added those emgo fork gaitors. We'll see how it holds up.

OH....for a fork seal puller, I just used one of the jaw arms from a 3-arm jaw puller...

[bwringer]

OEM only for me.

They don't cost all that much.

Normally, you don't need to replace the dust seals -- just the actual oil seal.

Check the snap rings, too -- these rust fairly often.

[mike_of_bbg]

My OEM seals are holding up pretty well so far. The last change was with "leak-proof" brand seals (classic, not moly) and they made it only about a year. A few people have been happy with the LeakProof Moly's, and they are easier to install (you don't beat them in, it's bad for them, just press them in lightly with your fingers). There are a couple of small pits in the travel area on my forks that I smoothed out as best I could, maybe it was just too much for the LP's.

[salty_monk]

I've used aftermarket that have lasted about 12k miles (4 years on that bike). A lot depends on the condition of your fork legs...

[bwringer]

I used to use the Leak Proof Pro Moly seals -- they work well, even on imperfect fork legs, and are easy to install.

However, the Leak Proof seals simply wear out early -- you'll get 12K to 15K miles at the most.

The original seals on my GS850 lasted 86,000 miles and 27 years, so it doesn't make sense to install anything but OEM.

There are other brands of OEM-style seals out there, but quality is suspect.

One thing I'll mention is that Bike Bandit sells seals for many bikes that are directly from NOK, the manufacturer of the OEM seals. These should be the same or the same quality as OEM.

[mrbill5491]

OEM, I've tried the Leak Proof molys a coupe times, have always ended up trashing them after a year. The OEMs seem to work the best. The K&Ls used them a couple times, worked okay, though always went back to the OEMs.