Fork seals

[owen]

Nice easy question for someone: do you need any special tools to replace the fork seals on a zxr400l? They've been revalved at k-tech but don't suppose that makes any difference to what I need.
Cheers in advance!
Owen

[SOILZX]

Dunno if this will help you? http://www.zxrworld.co.uk/zxr400/forks.html

[lucky77]

what i will say is that they are the biggest ball ache of any job ive had to do on my zxr............well when I say "ive" i mean, me helping out my mate who runs a bike shop who is bloody good at doin em, and it still takes a good hour or two. Whereabouts do you live? Might be easier just to drop the forks out and take em to someone who knows what they are doin for the money?

[cargo]

what i will say is that they are the biggest ball ache of any job ive had to do on my zxr............well when I say "ive" i mean, me helping out my mate who runs a bike shop who is bloody good at doin em, and it still takes a good hour or two. Whereabouts do you live? Might be easier just to drop the forks out and take em to someone who knows what they are doin for the money?

+1
Forks are a pain hate doing them and if you are doing a proper service theres all sorts of complicated little bit to check inside..................I take mine to an expert who has a workshop like a operating theatre it's clean and tidy he knows more about forks than just about anyone. If I have suspension problems at a race he'll be there to help with guidance and even a quick free check of my forks if need be....................can't praise him enough................he does shocks too.

[Deswilkie]

I've done them myself a couple of times now (put the seal in upside down the first time) and it's a straight forward job but time consuming (couple of hours once you've got the forks off) and slightly dangerous when it comes to compress the fork to put the bolt back in the bottom. I just about got a darwin award by using a tie strap to take up the tention of the fork while I leant my full body weight on it. If the strap had come off/sheared/let go in anyway the fork would have just gone straight through me.

So... in higensight I now use reactive suspension (http://www.reactivesuspension.com/) They used to come up to the Scottish Champoinship meetings at Knockhill and East Fortune. I turned up with the leaking forks on the Sat morning and got them back with new seals, oil and polished up for £85 by lunchtime!!! Saved me a couple of hours work and knew they were done properly.

[owen]

cheers for the advice guys. I decided to be lazy and gave them to the specialists.. didnt fance being impaled on a spring!
Owen

[masterofinsanity]

check out the know your stuff forum there is a couple of threads in there showing how to do it.