These are pictures of my bike as it sits at Rocket Moto in Nashua, NH. I took it in because I had a slow left fork seal leak for the last 2 weeks...maybe 3 weeks but couldn't get it in until this week.
I hadn't had anything done in about 6-7 years with lots of miles ...big mistake as I should have had it done earlier and I might have escaped some of the damage found. The bike , other than a leaking seal, was riding great and showed no sign that :
shiny fork tubes were somewhat scratched and chrome worn off each tube....needed to both be replaced
both lower fork legs were worn out of spec on the inside hole so they needed to be replaced also
total of both upper tubes and lower tubes just over $700...ouch
replacing stock OEM upper and lower triple tree clamps with Traxxion billet clamps and new All Balls bearings....my choice and an extra $500....again ouch
Preventative maintenance issue I had ignored now biting my a$$...but I'll have a great riding bike when I get it back.
These pictures are commonly seen by most of us....just still a shock of sorts to see the bike sitting there looking like that.
Ouch. Sounds expensive. Figure 320 for tubes, 100 for bushings and seals, 350 for lower legs and labour. I feel your pain. I do mine fork refresh every winter. In twelve years of riding, I only had to replace the lowers once, and one tube.
Somewhere approaching 103,000 miles of mostly smiles. :grin2:And with very few real mechanical skills, I need to have the professionals do it as always.
I had 349,000 miles on my 02 when I sold it. I replaced bushings, sliders, and seals on both sides whenever a leak developed. the rest was still original when I sold the bike. Now I'm wondering if I had a problem I never even new about?
As I understand it, when the bushings are well past the wear limits the steel slider tube can rub on the inside of the lower aluminum legs. The steel will win everytime and cause the aluminum casting hole to become slightly egg shaped. Mine were measured out of spec so better changed now than next season I say.
And of course, we should be blaming Honda on this, since their fork oil and bushing replacement schedule is..... Hmmm, where did that document go.... Page 67 in the shop manual, no. page 20 in the owners manual...no...... Wait, here is...... never! They expect you to wait until you have some form of damage first; which can be simple seal leaking to oval, scratched up an no new seal will ever not leak.
I have replaced bushings twice in 115K miles on my current bike and fork oil more often than that. If you have a trike with the 6 deg tree, you may need to replace bushings at least one additional time for that 115K miles. We change oil in the engine because contamination causes it to be less effective. Those slide bushings may be the only service point for that oil, but it still has the same contamination issue becoming less effective. We want to keep the Teflon on the bushing as long as possible, and clean oil every now and then helps. But once that black/dark gray coating is gone, your big $$ parts are next and may go fast. I usually keep a set of bushings and seals on hand. They were put in a trike a few months ago, and I have not been in a hurry to replace stock yet.
Yep I replaced my worn out Traxxions with a "new" OEM set from a fellow forum member. Happy as a pig in s#%t now. Took me about 1 hour to swap. Easy peasy!
I do take the "credit" for not having the forks serviced prior to the point that they were basically junk....my bike, so how could I not shoulder all the "credit". It just rode so good I had a hard time thinking it was that time to get it done and if not for the leaking left seal would probably not be posting about this fork service now. This is actually the 4th time in almost 103,000 miles that I have had the forks serviced....two other times for leaking left seals and the complete fork service with new bushings etc. 6-7 years ago. The only symptom I had that it was going south was that in very tight turn arounds I could feel through the handlebars the forks were flexing around quite a bit. The bike never ever wobbled or wallowed around in corners and held the line I wanted to do in corners.
Allen
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