fork springs, seals?

[Joe Garfield]

I want to change out the fork springs on my 82650GL. There are no signs of leakage but I'm wondering if I should replace the seals anyway? I'm already outgrowing this bike after 2 months so I don't want to throw 'unnecessary" time and money into the project. I will most likely be riding it through this year, and hopefully something bigger the following summer. Doing the springs alone looks to be fairly straight forward.

Thanks for the help!

 

[hampshirehog]

If they're not leaking there's no need to replace them.

 

[Joe Garfield]

Thanks for the quick response. I wanted to add that I might have been a little confused with fork seals and fork oil seals? Anyway it sounds like I should leave it all alone...

 

[Guest]

If you're thinking of replacing the springs because your front end sags or 'plunges' under braking, that's good, but if you wind up rotating the sliders (where the seals are pressed into, under the dust boots) during the process, the seals will probably leak in a few hundred, maybe thousand miles. The reason I say that is that I've noticed, for an example, fork seals on bikes with a lot of miles on them, that the seals sort of 'polish' the fork tubes due to friction, the wear patterns created by that friction. Fork tubes and sliders that are undisturbed (not taken apart) during the life of the bike to that point have created particular wear patterns that if disturbed (rotated during your work on the bike), even a little, the seal lips are being asked to keep oil in while working up and down (cycled) on a different part of the tube that has different wear patterns (tiny grooves), and is likely to then leak after not much more mileage. Soo- if your GL has a lot of miles on it, and you want to change the fork oil at the
same time (recommended), the chances are you might change the relationship between the seal and the tube anyway. You can drain the old fork oil out of the drain plugs on the bottom of the sliders, but that's never very satisfactory because it still leaves a lot of crud in the tube/
slider assembly (assembly sometimes called a fork leg). Depending on the mileage on your 650 (I've got an '81 regular 'G'), a complete disassembly and cleaning, new seals and bushings along with your springs, and very precisely measured proper weight fork oil will result in a phenomenal difference to your front end performance, good enough to not bother with
again for as long as you own the bike (if you get the fork seals in straight-
use pvc pipe the right diameter for a drift). It IS a chore, and there's more to it than I've outlined here. Just putting in the springs and nothing else will probably make some difference, depending on how sacked-out your current springs are. If they're not-well--your call, and we all wish you good luck, and a happy riding season coming up