The adventures of changing my own fork seal on my Hyosung GT 250 R!

**DarkLord** · 2nd May 2008, 09:41

Far out. What a mission. Where do I start?

First of all a few weeks ago the left hand fork seal on the bike blew for the second time in 2 months. My flatmate is basically an inventor/mad scientist/hard out do-it-yourself type of a guy so when I told him my fork seal had gone again, he said instead of taking it back to a mechanic, that we should do it ourselves. He owns a Bandit 1200 and has been riding for years so he's done his fair share of fork seals.

To start with - the place that previously did the fork seals didn't make a record of the seals that were in the bike so we had to pull the fork apart and pull the seal out to find out which was the right one. We had the bike suspended from a tow rope in my mate's garage. Once we had the seal we took it to a shop and asked if they had it and they didn't so we had to order it. This was on Saturday so we couldn't get it till next week, so for the time being the bike was suspended in the garage and we couldn't do anything.

Once the fork seals arrived on Wednesday morning we shot over there after work and tried to install them. This is where the nightmare began. No matter what we did or how hard we tried or banged/shoved/pushed the fork seal would not go into the fork. IT WAS A NIGHTMARE!!! we tried for about 5 hours and basically felt like we were pushing shit uphill with a stick as we were just getting nowhere. Another thing we found is that the outside of the fork is not all one piece and the silver bit at the bottom of the gold part of the fork popped right off which made life much more complicated!!!! We ended up inventing our own tools to push the seal in and keep the silver bit on, needless to say they didn't work too well!!

We slept on it and last night came to a conclusion that even though the fork seal was the same measurements as the old one, it still didn't fit so we had to sand the blasted thing down ever so slightly.

That made all the difference as it finally went in however it was still a mission to get the thing in there without the proper tool!!! We ended up putting the old fork seal on the outside of it and the dust cover up against that and pushing it in using a vice and someone else holding the top of it to stop it popping out, which forced it in there and once it was in we popped the old seal out.

Mission accomplised so far but there was still room for some extremely dumb things to happen. When we poured in the new fork oil we forgot to put in the bolt at the bottom of the fork so oil just went straight through it all over the place.... duuuh

Eventually we got the bolt back in and the fork full of oil, and were finally able to put the bike back together and I took it out for a ride, and it seemed fine, no leaking oil everywhere!!!!

So finally after a week of intense frustration and catching the f&%$#$*&*@#$$&*%$ing bus to work and back I have my bike back in 1 piece and with a brand new fork seal in place which I fitted myself!!! It doesn't seem to be leaking as of yet so hoping it will stay that way.

Lessons learnt:

1. When you do your own fork seal MAKE SURE you know EXACTLY the measurements of the seal to go into the fork BEFORE you pull it apart so that your bike doesn't end up hanging from the roof for 5 days while you try and get the right fork seal!!! Easiest way to go is make sure you get the genuine fork seals for your bike!!

2. Just because the measurements of the fork seal are the same as the previous ones does not always mean they will fit. Sometimes a little creative thinking is required i.e. sanding it down slightly.

3. A good way to push a new fork seal in is by using a vice.

4. Make sure you put the bolt in the bottom of the fork before filling it with oil unless you want oil all over your garage.

5. Catching the bus to work is far less fun than taking the bike.

Special thanks to Gordy for all of his help and creative thinking, and to Hubba Gubba for the use of his garage and for having another Whoflung there to compare to when we were putting it back together.

Cheers all,

JG84.

**Gubb** · 2nd May 2008, 15:08

Ha. You make it all sound so easy.

**fizbin** · 2nd May 2008, 21:49

damed now i know why i take my bike to the mechanic lol

**GreenBandit** · 2nd May 2008, 23:46

I don't really ever trust anyone to work on my bike, the mechanics are paid by the hour, they whana get the job done fast. the forks are made of a very soft metal which can chip easily when the chipped metal rubs against a rubber seal it begins to leak then it needs to be replace, if the chips are not repaired then it will only leak again a fue weeks later. Needless to say a mechanic is not going to want to spend much time looking for small chips.

We found that taping the seal in with a hammer worked but…. There was a real high risk that we would just end up chipping the metal again. (I did that with my old bikes in the past) So the vice was by far the best way to do it.

If there’s anyone who’s going to care about the job being done properly its the loving owner “you”. If you want something done right taking charge and doing it your self maybe the only way to get it done properly. Either way your granteed to learn something from trying.

Gordy