My 2000 gs500 has bad fork seals woohoo. fluid has mostly dripped out. I have a 92 parts bike and the forks look in great shape. Would it be easier to just swap the forks or install new seals/Maybe rebuild my current leaky forks?

woot.

It is easier to swap forks but if the parts bike has been sitting you may find the seals on it are dried out and will start leaking with use.

-Jessie

hmmmmmm thats what i was thinking. the parts bike has half the miles that mine does though. i might swap the forks and if i get a leak then ill rebuild. How hard is it to remove the forks? sorry for the stupid question just wondering if i can do it in my garage with hand tools

Quote from: TheGaginator on March 12, 2012, 07:07:27 PM
hmmmmmm thats what i was thinking. the parts bike has half the miles that mine does though. i might swap the forks and if i get a leak then ill rebuild. How hard is it to remove the forks? sorry for the stupid question just wondering if i can do it in my garage with hand tools

Swapping forks is simple.  Pull the front tire, loosen top and bottom yokes, slide the forks out, then re-install the replacements in the reverse order.  be sure to check the service manual for torque specs for the bolts in the triples to avoid overtightening them.

sweet. ill do it tomorrow! buenos noches y tortilla

Swap forks now. Rebuild them at your leisure. Then put the good one back on and rebuild the others.
Or rebuild the others before swapping. Only takes an hour to rebuild a pair of forks.
You could put in new springs while you're at it.

But springs can be replaced anytime - even with the forks on the bike. Just get the front wheel off the ground and it's easy - 5 minutes tops.

Quote from: adidasguy on March 12, 2012, 08:22:55 PM
Swap forks now. Rebuild them at your leisure. Then put the good one back on and rebuild the others.
Or rebuild the others before swapping. Only takes an hour to rebuild a pair of forks.
You could put in new springs while you're at it.

But springs can be replaced anytime - even with the forks on the bike. Just get the front wheel off the ground and it's easy - 5 minutes tops.

I have to put new springs/rebuild mine too because mine are worthless! The fork seals leaked when I got her.  Woulds it be easier for me to just pull the forks for rebuild, or leave them on the bike and rebuild them on the bike?

You can't rebuild forks on the bike.

You CAN change fork springs on the bike. For that, all you do is take off the top cap...swap springs...check oil level...put caps back on.

Quote from: adidasguy on March 13, 2012, 10:20:03 AM
You can't rebuild forks on the bike.

You CAN change fork springs on the bike. For that, all you do is take off the top cap...swap springs...check oil level...put caps back on.

Got it, so there is no way to pull the bottom legs off to replace the seals while the top legs are still in the triples?

Given enough effort and ingenuity, anything can be done.
They are so easy to take off, I'm not understanding the problem. You do have to support the front of the bike however you do fork work. It is so easy to remove them and work on them on the workbench. Not sure how you'd hold them upside down to drain out all oil when replacing oil if they are on the bike.

Did you think of how you would get new fork seals down the fork tubes if they are still in the triple clamps? 

In theory you can do seals on a GS with the legs still on the bike, however it is much harder to do.

On a 89-95 katana it is a lot easier than the GS so you can do it on the bike ... its just about the same amount of work.
The seals you can slide on from the bottom no problem, the GS is a mess cos the bolt on the bottom holding the damping rod will spin, hence you need to get a tool 24" long from the top to hold it. The 89-95 kat FE does not need that. You can just unbolt it @ the bottom. Kat also has a drain to get the oil out. So you can do all of that, then put the seals etc and then finally take the top caps off and fill fluid in it. I wont say its the better or worse way to do it, but if you have a good clean FE without any nicks and cuts etc in the legs I dont see much of a problem.

Cool.
Buddha.

Given what you need to do, the damper rod removal, the seals & bushings on the end of the tubes...... and then pulling apart the two parts to get the old seal out....
I'd love to see a video of doing all of that without removing the forks from the bike while snacking on the lay-z-boy

Quote from: adidasguy on March 13, 2012, 11:39:05 AM
Given enough effort and ingenuity, anything can be done.
They are so easy to take off, I'm not understanding the problem. You do have to support the front of the bike however you do fork work. It is so easy to remove them and work on them on the workbench. Not sure how you'd hold them upside down to drain out all oil when replacing oil if they are on the bike.

Did you think of how you would get new fork seals down the fork tubes if they are still in the triple clamps? 

You're right, It sounds alot easier to replace the fork seals when the forks are off the bike completely.  Just asking, I had planned on taking them off anyways.  i have done fork seals/dust seals on the USD forks on my 02 CR250 2-smoker, so this should be very similar.  I have a Motion Pro fork seal driver tool that I used to push the seals in on my CR, do I need such a tool for the GS?, or is it not as tight due to them being traditional forks and the seal driver is not needed?

Thanks for all the info 

There's a thread somewhere on how to make your own tool to get the fork apart.
As for pressing the new seal in, 2 things work: Piece of PVC pipe or a paint roller. Yes - a paint roller is very slightly larger than the fork tube. Goes right on a presses them on really nice. Get a 19" roller or stack a couple regular ones on top of each other.
I hold the fork in a vice using a scrapped lower triple. Nice, gentle way to hold a fork and not damage it. The bolt has a strong magnet I use to pull out the washers & stuff. You can use whatever suits you.


The home made tool is there next to a fork. I forget where the article is (beergarage.com?). Another guy was over one day and made the tool for the Bike Cave.

The task in diagram 7.8 you dont need to do at all.
7.9, 7.10, and 7.11 you can do on the bike just as well.
7.12 - see the bushing #4 can come off out the bottom, so the rest of it also will fall out the bottom of the leg.
However without the drain screw holding the head of the cup in which the damping rod fits in where its machined to a D shape etc etc - parts that the GS doesn't have only the kat does, without that you cant even get the damper rod un bolted without going through the top.
Cool.
Buddha.

SWEET! it LITERALLY took me 8 minutes to swap my forks. piece of cake haha. didnt know it was going to be that easy. Next up on my list, instead of rebuilding my old forks and using them later, what forks (off other bikes) are a good upgrade with minimal  work?

The only sporty bike I am aware of with 37mm forks was the original CBR600 Hurricane from the late 80's.  They will get you dual front disc brakes and slightly better performance.  An entire Katana front end is another common swap.  Ben2Go sells adapters to make the Katana triple tree stem work on the GS frame or else you have to have a machine shop press the GS stem into the Katana triples. 

-Jessie

If you ever need to do the seals, I followed the directions on the Beer Garage guy's site. The "special" tool made it a lot easier than I thought. It did take me a while because I never did it before, but I didn't run into too much trouble.

http://beergarage.com/GSForkSeals.aspx