My dust seals are cracked at the tops, but my oil seals are fine (tube is dryy....). I am doing a spring replacement soon, and was thinking about doing it the lazy way. Are the dust seals critical in any way? Do I really need to replace them, or can I leave them alone?

Depends on the conditions you ride in. If the bike sees rain once in a while I'r deplace them. Rust-eaten circlips and oil seals are no fun.

Replace them.

Only pain can come if you don't. At worst it can mean it will destroy your fork seals if you don't do it.

Quote from: MarkusN on September 01, 2006, 10:32:40 AM
Depends on the conditions you ride in. If the bike sees rain once in a while I'r deplace them. Rust-eaten circlips and oil seals are no fun.

You aren't kidding. I replaced the seals on my '91 recently. I'm not sure the previous owner had ever done it. The clips had turned into nothing more than a pile of rust. Not too pleasant digging all that crap out of there. I'd just go ahead and change them. The forks are really easy to remove and I'm a mechanical idiot. You wouldn't even need to dissasemble the forks to replace just the dust seal.

Hi all,
There is another alternative, too.
You can replace the old dust seals with fork boots, which would protect the delicate fork tubes from stones and rocks, as well as keep water out.
They are retro-looking and kind of fun.
You can get a set for your forks at any shop or online, you just need to match them to the fork diameter.
I like the look of fork boots.

For instance, see them here at:
http://www.powersportsnetwork.com/enthusiasts/catalog_item_detail.asp?catalog=754&levelcode=6424&product=67098&cattype=&ProductCategoryCode=


I hope this helps.

Yours,
Todd

Definetly not an option for my bike, not quite my style.