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Example of a poor fork maintenance, trying to fix that

  • Thread starter Thread starter juhui
  • Start date Start date
J

juhui

Guest
First, let me introduce the bike.

frontfork.jpg
It's a 1983 GS450E, so I was told. In this pic you can see the fork dust cap in incorrect place.

After taking off the forks, I discovered that there was another (maybe the previously used) fork seal _inside_ the dust cap. The left side dust cap was also glued in place with blue gasget sealant. So, in both forks I had two seals.

The left fork had a circlip and it was easy to disassemble.

The right fork didn't have a circlip, just the seal. The seal was really tight and almost could not take the fork leg apart. After some brute force :) I got the seal out. And there was a circlip after all. I believe the seal had come through the circlip.

Both legs had minimum amount of oil, more like mud. Also the allen bolt in the bottom was so dirty inside, it seemed like there was sand inside as well.

So maybe I will get this fixed, I hope so. I'll post some more photos below.
 
fork_contents.jpgThis is the stuff that came out. Double fork seals don't mean they work twice as good. :)
 
front_fork_brakereservoir.jpg
Can you tell me if this fork leg is from 1983 GS450E as it has a brake fluid reservoir built in it. I haven't seen those in other GS450 pictures, maybe it's from another model? What is the function of this?
 
That's not a brake reservoir, it looks like an anti-dive mechanism.

I was not aware the 450 had them, but I don't follow that line too closely.

A quick look at the parts fiche shows no anti-dive on the 450, so those forks are from another bike.

.
 
Thanks, I noticed that too today when inspecting and cleaning the legs. What do you think, should I scrap that anti-dive system and change the forks altogether? I read it disappeared quickly when they discovered it was unpredictable in high speeds and specially if not maintained properly. I found one pair from 1982 GS1100, would that fit ok?
 
I'm not exactly sure when but the later Canadian GS400E's had single sided anti-dive forks like that.
Suzuki%20GS400S%2085.jpg

You can see it on this image of an 86,not sure when Suzuki started that but I think it was 83 or 4:-k
Edit:Looking at your location it makes sense,the 83 European 450 would have had the same forks as the Canadian 400.There wasn't a 450E in the US in 83 only an L.
 
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