I am not sure but my forks seem to leek a little on the one side on top.  Is there an adjustment or reason this is happening.  Is it normal or am I fixing stuff again.

Thanks

Tom

Quote from: tom42 on July 07, 2008, 07:29:38 PM
I am not sure but my forks seem to leek a little on the one side on top.  Is there an adjustment or reason this is happening.  Is it normal or am I fixing stuff again.

Do you mean the fork is leaking at the upper triple (near the handlebars)? If so, there is an o-ring in there that you need to replace. The o-ring will cost less than $5 and about half an hour of your time.

If you're talking about the fork seals leaking, it's a whole other story. The fork seals are located at the joint where the top and bottom halves of the fork meet.

It is the fork seals.  They were replaced in 2004 by the last owner and he paid $275.  Can this be done with the manual or does anyone have any links or tricks, or should I just pay.  How bad is bad?  It is really small and takes days to build up.

Here is a recent post from beRto  , with TONS of helpful links and info.

Quote from: beRto on May 30, 2008, 11:44:54 AM
The FAQ has some required reading:

1. special tool you will need - http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=7084.0
2. more details on special tool - http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=39547.0
3. propping up front end - http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=27361.0
4. HOW TO - http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=16318.0
5. another HOW TO - http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=25706.msg267120
6. seal installation orientation - http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=29706.msg322084#msg322084

I also found the following website to be useful because it has lots of pics (and it's a GS500):
http://www.geocities.com/inline_four/team_smelly/diy/fork_seals/

Take your time and give yourself 3 h - 4 h. Read up on the job and ask questions before you get into the garage.

Because you have to open up the forks anyways, this would be an excellent opportunity to install Progressive springs.

Good luck!

Quote from: tom42 on July 07, 2008, 08:21:27 PM
It is the fork seals.  They were replaced in 2004 by the last owner and he paid $275.  Can this be done with the manual or does anyone have any links or tricks, or should I just pay.  How bad is bad?  It is really small and takes days to build up.

I did my fork seals,15w oil,and progressive springs for under $100.That includes making the tool to disassemble the fork.Never opened a street bike fork and I did it in 1.5 hours with no help, other than the write up in the FAQ, and a Clymer manual for torque specs. I bought all of my seals off ebay for $20.

Quote from: ben2go on July 07, 2008, 08:43:35 PM

Quote from: tom42 on July 07, 2008, 08:21:27 PM
It is the fork seals.  They were replaced in 2004 by the last owner and he paid $275.  Can this be done with the manual or does anyone have any links or tricks, or should I just pay.  How bad is bad?  It is really small and takes days to build up.

I did my fork seals,15w oil,and progressive springs for under $100.That includes making the tool to disassemble the fork.Never opened a street bike fork and I did it in 1.5 hours with no help, other than the write up in the FAQ, and a Clymer manual for torque specs. I bought all of my seals off ebay for $20.

I was going to say the same thing, but was to lazy to.

Search and ye will find the answers.

What are progressive springs?  And since it is only leaking a little is there anything I can tighten or is it over?

Took me a total of 9 hours last weekend and that included 2 trips to the shop and I had never even taken off the front wheel before.....

It's over, if you don't fix the fork leak, your muffler bearings will probably start acting up which is something you don't even want to think about trying to fix.

I replaced the muffler bearings, it cost $625. I hope that was worth it.  Seriously It looks pretty straight forward but I have a new problem; there is a tiny but relivent  nick in the inner fork.  Im sure this is curring the seal.  I assume there is nothing to fix this so any good places to get an inner fork?  Bike Bandit wants $180 or something.

Thanks

Tom

Switch to a Kat FE. The nicks and rust pits yes never get it to seal.
I can sell you one - $450 and it has new bearings, has the top triple welded to take GS guages, the stem has been shortened so no spacers needed and the ignition locks and steering stops all work perfect, and you can even fit the gs headlight ears (that I have modded and is included) ... It does not include a wheel - GS wheel should be used. All else is included. Oh, that also has seals that are good. I can also be persuaded to do a seal and ahem ... some magic that will prevent the seal from leaking ... heck I should just do that for people. But even my magic wont work with a nicked up fork tube.
Cool.
Buddha.

Oy, Buddha, there you go again.
Not everyone needs to go through all the aggravation and expense of a Katana front end.
Any fork tube, even a Katana's, can get a nick on it and cause seal leaks.
It's unfortunate, but it happens.
You can clean up the nick with some very fine emery paper but most likely it will still leak at some point.
I found a good GS500 set of forks for $125 after mine got a nick on one side.
Keep watching out for some or do what I did for several years -- drain the fork oil and refill them each year to compensate for the leak.
Good luck,
Todd

I am not very good at explaining stuff ... I'll try to break it down here.

The GS FE has a lot of travel. It should have a lot less. Stiffer springs etc will help. But if you have rust pit ot nick 1/2 way up the tube, in a Kat FE, that will never come to play, a GS sela will get torn by that the first ride you take.
The GS FE is made to rust, OK dunno why, but kat FE's rust a lot less even when neglected. Well I know why - but its too hard to explain it here - something like higher quality of hexavalent chromium on the Kat FE and the GS one was not that well monitored due to the fact that Hexavalent chromium is really really poisonous - watch the movie Erin Brockovich. That was about hexavalent chromium.
The GS FE tends to wear crookedly cos its got disk on 1 side. This is a theory but I am pretty sure it has some truth.

And with the mods I have made, a Kat FE swap is just a few steps more work than the fork leg swap, and its damn well easier than a fork seal job. Much much easier than seals and much faster. You'd spend more time admiring your twin disc FE than actually working ... and that will be the only reason you take more time.
In fact people have had a pretty easy time fitting it all up when I just sell them the lower triple machining job. That effectively takes all the guess work out. All the work on the Kat FE swap is in the lower triple+stem. Get that right and its a piece of cake. Yea yea there is the fiddling, routing brake lines and shoving this and that into place. But no real tough work.
Cool.
Buddha.

One more thing I forget - I forget it all the time.
Convert to a Kat FE and not only do you not need progressives, you also get the clip on's.
A perfectly good GS FE should be swapped for the Kat, and if you have bad tubes or other BS there is no contest. Ask anyone that has had a Kat FE on a GS and you will hear the same thing. I only copied werase and Dgyver and others. However, the Kat triple and GS dash ears weld up job - entirely mine.
Kat FE is also much easier to do seals on - no need for loooooong ass threaded rod with nut on a looooong ass socket blah blah ... its drain bolt (it has a drain on the forks too BTW) holds the threaded end of the damping rod so you just unscrew the bolt and it literally falls apart. BTW 98 and later - it does not have the drain if I recall. So pre 98 is what you want.
Cool.
Buddha.