04-09 FZ6 FORK OIL and seal replacement!

[Pplater]

The end bolt can be opened without a damper holding tool, rebar or wooden stake. I also did not use an impact gun.

Before removing the forks or lossening the pinch bolts holding the forks in place, loosen the end bolts and drain fork oil first with the forks still held in place, but with the front wheel removed.

However when assembling the forks, i used a customized damper rod holding tool instead. The other fz6 is due for fork oil change in nov/dec. I will try to reassemble the forks without damper rod holding tool and see if works. This may be attempted by using upper and lower bracket pinch bolts to hold the forks in place. All the components be assembled, including the fork cap, but no fork oil should be added until the end bolt is tightened. I suspect this may eliminate the need for damper rod holding tool, wooden stake, rebar etc. Maybe someone wants to try this before i do?

 

[lghtmgr]

Found this at my local home store when I went to get a length of 2" PVC pipe to make a tool, for $3 and the cost of the 2" PVC it work out very well.
It is an internal 2" PVC coupling, I had no idea this product existed. Thought I would post up for anyone getting ready to change their seals


The coupling fit the seal and the 2" PVC worked to seat slide with the washer cover on and close enough to seat the dust cover.



Thanks to Fizzer6 for the original post.

 

[Gary in NJ]

Wow, perfect fit.

 

[SilverTwin]

Huge thanks for this post, replaced my seals yesterday and all of the details shared here made it much easier.

The 2" i.d. piping from Lowe's worked perfectly!

 

[Doctor T]

replaced my fork seals twice in 7000 miles.
first time because of wheelies second time just because they started to leak again.
now it's 7500 miles and forks are wet from the oil on a chrome part, not that it's a waterfall but doesn't look normal.

is anyone else having same issues with front forks? I'm not going to replace seals 3rd time, would replace them with R6 forks...

 

[TownsendsFJR1300]

replaced my fork seals twice in 7000 miles.
first time because of wheelies second time just because they started to leak again.
now it's 7500 miles and forks are wet from the oil on a chrome part, not that it's a waterfall but doesn't look normal.

is anyone else having same issues with front forks? I'm not going to replace seals 3rd time, would replace them with R6 forks...

Nope, 27,000 miles on the original seals. But then I don't do wheelies. (Slight wheel lift on hard acceleration-rarely)


You probably have excessive wear to the bushings inside the legs which will not let the seals do their job.

IDK if the R6 forks will hold up any better with doing wheelies, especially if a "hard landing" . Someone else will have to chime in..


One fork oil change since new..

I also run AIR in each fork leg, about 13 PSI:

 

[Gary in NJ]

I'll chime in, wheelies kill fork seals. Wanna do endless wheelies...get a dirt bike.

 

[trepetti]

I'll chime in, wheelies kill fork seals. Wanna do endless wheelies...get a dirt bike.

And wheelies crack frames on the FZ6.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

[7UPyours]

just hit 29k miles and left fork started to leak, will be doing seals this off season, time is limited and still want to ride few more times. This write up will be very helpful Thank you

 

[7UPyours]

Hey guys, ended up getting a set of these seals and covers but am really having a hard time figuring out which side is too and which one goes in 1st. Can you help out?

Update

All set, got it done and it’s all back together.

 

[FinalImpact]

My R6 forks have had random seepage over the years. Fix has always been clean the dried bug guts off the stanchion tube and problem solved.

I'm guessing the nose is up a couple times on nearly every outing and no issues. That said there was only one time hard landing and that was cray cray as the bars also slipped down on impact and I couldn't steer as the tank was in the way. lol

 

[FinalImpact]

FWIW: although I never did this to the stock forks, don't hesitate to overfill them by 25 to 40mm of oil.

Like Scott adding an air charge, this does the same thing by reducing the volume of air to be compressed.

Also it made a scary problem go away on the R6 fork install.

Problem: down hill high nose load braking induced a head chatter that felt like one was holding on to jack hammer. Basically the tire and suspension bouncing 3 to 4 times per second when you need the brakes the most. Speeds could be 60mph to 15mph. But hard pre-corner/corner braking on downhill runs and some flat runs were flat out scary.

The fix was higher tire pressure and overfilling the fork oil by 40mm or so.

Try it, see if it helps your nose dive issues too.