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Hi everyone,
As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.
When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.
Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.
Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.
Thanks for your patience and support!
250-500cc 2009 WR300 fork seals
- Thread starter fuzzyh
- Start date
Did you make sure all the air is bled out?
Read this,
Te 510 09 leaky fork seals****************************************
Read this,
Te 510 09 leaky fork seals****************************************
BentAero
Husqvarna
A Class
There are only two reasons that fork seals leak, assuming your tubes are still round.
Either there is a contaminant under the lip of the seal, or the lip itself has a cut in it. Sometimes it's both.
Think of the fork seal like the windshield wiper on your car. Get a leaf stuck under the wiper, and it won't clean the water off very well -leaves a big streak of water until the leaf is removed. Get a cut in the rubber edge of the wiper that touches the glass, and it will leave a constant streak as well -permanently.
If your leaking seal is caused by the former, it can often be cured (as others have mentioned) by inserting a thin piece of film in between the tube and the seal surface to remove the contaminate. To do this you must slide the wiper/scraper down out of place so you can get to the seal. A great device to 'wipe' with is a common business card. The paper will absorb the grunge up inside the seal lip, and often the particle that is causing the leak will stick to it. It will take several cards to do it, but you didn't have any better use for the cards from your old job.
If your leak is caused by the latter, no amount of seal wiping with a card will help.
Down in Baja I had a rock hit one of the tubes, putting a sharp knick in the tube. As the forks compressed, the knick then sliced the seal causing it to leak. Worse yet, that same knick put a nasty gouge in the lower fork bushing ruining it as well. Fortunately, the knick wasn't so bad that it wouldn't polish out of the tube. (Disassemble the fork, put the tube in a lathe, and polish it with 1200 grit sandpaper) The bushing, and obviously the seal, needed to be replaced. All is now good.
Either there is a contaminant under the lip of the seal, or the lip itself has a cut in it. Sometimes it's both.
Think of the fork seal like the windshield wiper on your car. Get a leaf stuck under the wiper, and it won't clean the water off very well -leaves a big streak of water until the leaf is removed. Get a cut in the rubber edge of the wiper that touches the glass, and it will leave a constant streak as well -permanently.
If your leaking seal is caused by the former, it can often be cured (as others have mentioned) by inserting a thin piece of film in between the tube and the seal surface to remove the contaminate. To do this you must slide the wiper/scraper down out of place so you can get to the seal. A great device to 'wipe' with is a common business card. The paper will absorb the grunge up inside the seal lip, and often the particle that is causing the leak will stick to it. It will take several cards to do it, but you didn't have any better use for the cards from your old job.
If your leak is caused by the latter, no amount of seal wiping with a card will help.
Down in Baja I had a rock hit one of the tubes, putting a sharp knick in the tube. As the forks compressed, the knick then sliced the seal causing it to leak. Worse yet, that same knick put a nasty gouge in the lower fork bushing ruining it as well. Fortunately, the knick wasn't so bad that it wouldn't polish out of the tube. (Disassemble the fork, put the tube in a lathe, and polish it with 1200 grit sandpaper) The bushing, and obviously the seal, needed to be replaced. All is now good.
BentAero;79251 said:
All good info.
But if you don't bleed off excess air built up in your shock it will leak.
Link from LTR. Equalize the air pressure
Ok, so "problematic" may have been a little harsh. I love this bike guys!
I just had the first race on it. Only the second outing on the bike from new. Dirt Rider magazine had the same issue when they tested the 2009 new. This is where my "problematic" comment came from.
I am have not yet tried the standard methods to remedy leaky seals. I have had several bikes that at one time or another leaked and could be fixed. It just seemed odd that DR had an issue, then I do one 2 hour hare scramble and I have a soaked brake caliper and soaked exhaust pipe.
I was just hoping that there was a Husky standard fix.
Again, this is my first Husky and I love the thing after only 1 trail ride and 1 race.
PS - I do bleed the air on the stand as one of my pre race day checks.
thanks all.
I just had the first race on it. Only the second outing on the bike from new. Dirt Rider magazine had the same issue when they tested the 2009 new. This is where my "problematic" comment came from.
I am have not yet tried the standard methods to remedy leaky seals. I have had several bikes that at one time or another leaked and could be fixed. It just seemed odd that DR had an issue, then I do one 2 hour hare scramble and I have a soaked brake caliper and soaked exhaust pipe.
I was just hoping that there was a Husky standard fix.
Again, this is my first Husky and I love the thing after only 1 trail ride and 1 race.
PS - I do bleed the air on the stand as one of my pre race day checks.
thanks all.
Flyin
Husqvarna
AA Class
I saw your post yesterday and thought The only time I've heard of a problem with them was when Dirt Rider was testing the '09.
I installed bleeders, I bleed mine before I ride, with the bike in a static position. I also bleed them as they warm up.
If you are bleeding them on a stand before you ride, you will have a lot of pressure once they are warmed up. While I don't think this is what caused your problem, it's certianly adding fuel to the fire.
I installed bleeders, I bleed mine before I ride, with the bike in a static position. I also bleed them as they warm up.
If you are bleeding them on a stand before you ride, you will have a lot of pressure once they are warmed up. While I don't think this is what caused your problem, it's certianly adding fuel to the fire.
motosapiens
Husqvarna
A Class
fuzzyh;79348 said:
Based on my experience with other bikes, my standard fix would be to install synergy seals (www.synergyseals.com). they do seem to be available for the 50mm zokes.
we just changed out a set of synergy seals that had been in my fiancees bike for over 10,000 hard offroad miles, including many streamcrossings, and pretty much no maintenance. They may have only started leaking due to wear and play in the bushings, so we replaced the bushings as well.
2stroked
Husqvarna
A Class
One side of my 07 45's started leaking and I just got a peice of 35mm film and it fixed it. I never have had problems with any of my bikes fork seals, just clean the dust seals and I put some grease in behind the dust seals, it seems to keep the dirt from getting into the oil seals, just make sure you clean them out once and awhile so the dirt doesn't mix with the grease and get into your oil seals
Ok guys. Just went through my leaking forks. They were packed with fine sand (that will make em leak). It also killed one of the bushings. There were a lot of other guys that had the same issue from that race I am told. SO, all is good now and i will go to the next race and see how the seals do.
motosapiens
Husqvarna
A Class
fuzzyh;81528 said:Ok guys. Just went through my leaking forks. They were packed with fine sand (that will make em leak). It also killed one of the bushings. There were a lot of other guys that had the same issue from that race I am told. SO, all is good now and i will go to the next race and see how the seals do.
yikes. must have been a horrendous mudfest.
out here in the west, the most common leak-causer I have seen is snow patches in the desert. you get some silty mud on the forks, and it dries quickly in the desert air, then you hit some big whoops or g-outs and the dried mud gets forced into the seals. i have many times just pulled the forks apart, wiped out the seals, reassembled and added fresh oil and continued for years. I typically shorten the tension springs in the seals by a few mm too. They seem to be pretty slack in order to minimize stiction at first, but after a short break-in period, stiction seems to go away anyway.