Early Sport fork seals

[docc]

Well, I was amazed that the "Seal Mate" @Mikko sent me out of pure kindness extended my fork seal life another 5,000 miles.

That was a gift beyond expectation!

Current attempts to restore the seals (especially the left) are to no avail. Time for seals (at 125,000+ miles/ 201.000+ km).

I have the seals (and dust seals) in The Pile .

What to know and do?   

Early V11 Sport Marzocchi (are they 40mm?) . . .

[Pressureangle]

You know I do all my own work (usually) but I was quite happy to let the local WP service center give them a mechanical rebuild and facelift for only a couple hun; replacing bushings is something best accomplished with correct tools- which requires in my experience either time and money to acquire the 'official' tool (which lays unused for eternity after) or 3 trips to Home Depot for the correct (?) size PVC pipe to cut into a tool. What broke the camel's back and drove me to outsource it wasn't that WP is literally a half hour drive, but that I couldn't find online a way to be certain of what fork I have and educate myself on the process before I took them apart- or halfway apart. FWIW here's your nearest WP service center;

WOOLY'S CYCLES OF ATLANTA

Address

• 1581 Cobb Pkwy S

• 30060 Marietta, GA

There are few things I hate more than taking something apart and being stuck for parts or tools while I forget where I was and how it fits back together. Like my Sport with no TBI linkage. Or my Mille GT waiting for spoke nipples from Sweden. Or my Aermacchi starter needing a register bored for the Suzuki upgrade. 

I have nothing that works properly today. 

[bbolesaz]

The work itself is not hard or complicated.  But often a special tool is required to keep the cartridge from spinning while the bottom bolt is removed.  I have only rebuilt BMW forks which don't require a tool.

[docc]

Since the "cartridge" is n the male/bottom and the seals are in the female/ top slider, it seems to me the upper/female slider can be separated without removing the cartridge?

Then a seal remover tool followed by a seal "driver?"

[Lucky Phil]

14 minutes ago, docc said:

Since the "cartridge" is n the male/bottom and the seals are in the female/ top slider, it seems to me the upper/female slider can be separated without removing the cartridge?

Then a seal remover tool followed by a seal "driver?"

In the later cartridge style forks docc you can leave the cartridge attached to the lower slider and remove the fork cap, spacer and spring. You don't need a seal remover as you use the upper and lower bush as a driver to remove the seal after you have removed the seal retaining clip. So you use the slider like a slide hammer to drift the seal out and then use a tool to install it. Same pretty much for the early damper rod forks except its the damper rod that stays in the slider and the spring and sleeve and spacer come out.

Ciao 

[docc]

Are the early V11 Marzocchi "cartridge style" or "damper rod" forks?    

[Lucky Phil]

12 minutes ago, docc said:

Are the early V11 Marzocchi "cartridge style" or "damper rod" forks?    

Damper rod docc.

Ciao

[GuzziMoto]

14 hours ago, Lucky Phil said:

Damper rod docc.

Ciao

Are you sure? I took my wife's red frame V11 forks apart, they were cartridge forks, not damper rod forks.

The cartridge had two bypass holes in it that allowed the fork oil to bypass the valving in the piston in the cartridge. 

[gstallons]

Just what are you calling cartridge or damper rod forks ? My parts manuals show the assemblies to be the "same" . The early style has a smaller diameter part(s) . Make sure what you get when you order . Joe Eish took care of me when I ordered my fork seals/bushings .

[Lucky Phil]

16 hours ago, GuzziMoto said:

Are you sure? I took my wife's red frame V11 forks apart, they were cartridge forks, not damper rod forks.

The cartridge had two bypass holes in it that allowed the fork oil to bypass the valving in the piston in the cartridge. 

Well this might be a complicated discussion. The early 40mm forks from what I have seen of them ( and I haven't had them apart unlike the later forks) control the compression and rebound via fixed orifice ports, correct? The damper piston operates in a sleeve that's bolted to the fork slider at the bottom. Further studying of the manual images it appears the early forks are indeed cartridge types and are able to be disassembled. What I dont know is does the damper rod piston and the "foot valve" ( which could be the compression damping valve but could just be a bottoming out snubber) as described in the manual have genuine shim stacks damping control? As soon as I saw and read from years ago the damping was controlled via fixed orifices and people were modifying them by welding up the holes and re drilling them I labelled them in my head as damper rod forks. This combined with no aftermarket replaceable cartridges for them cemented this impression in my mind. They appear from the images to be a cartridge "style" but is the damping controlled by fixed orifices or shim stacks on piston rod and a compression valve assy?  

[GuzziMoto]

14 hours ago, Lucky Phil said:

Well this might be a complicated discussion. The early 40mm forks from what I have seen of them ( and I haven't had them apart unlike the later forks) control the compression and rebound via fixed orifice ports, correct? The damper piston operates in a sleeve that's bolted to the fork slider at the bottom. Further studying of the manual images it appears the early forks are indeed cartridge types and are able to be disassembled. What I dont know is does the damper rod piston and the "foot valve" ( which could be the compression damping valve but could just be a bottoming out snubber) as described in the manual have genuine shim stacks damping control? As soon as I saw and read from years ago the damping was controlled via fixed orifices and people were modifying them by welding up the holes and re drilling them I labelled them in my head as damper rod forks. This combined with no aftermarket replaceable cartridges for them cemented this impression in my mind. They appear from the images to be a cartridge "style" but is the damping controlled by fixed orifices or shim stacks on piston rod and a compression valve assy?  

I have not taken the cartridge apart on ours, but it was clearly a cartridge and not a damper rod set up. The valving appears to be shims on a piston, but it has been a while. And I am not sure how the adjusters worked. It is possible that the valving is stationary and the piston has not valving, it just forces the oil through the stationary valving at one end of the cartridge. I don't know, I did not open the cartridge. It was not required for what I was doing. Again, it has been years since I worked on it. I do know the cartridge had a pair of holes in it that allowed the oil to bypass the valving in the piston. And by blocking off one of those two holes I forced more oil to go through the valving and thus the adjuster had a noticeable effect, while previously with both holes open the adjuster had no effect until the piston moved past at least one of the two holes. So as designed the adjusters were only effective in the last inch or so of travel, something of an adjustable hydraulic bumpstop. The dampening was separate, one leg had valving in that piston that worked in compression and the other had valving that worked in extension (rebound). In the compression side there was no valving to slow oil from flowing from above the piston to below the piston, and on the other side there was no valving to slow the oil from below the piston to above the piston. There was only valving in one direction.

But again, all this was taking place in a separate cartridge inside the fork and not using a damper rod at the bottom of the fork. They may have a different design for the cartridge than later forks, but it is a cartridge.

[docc]

My seal leak is "better" but not acceptable. MySport has the early 40mm Marzocchi. MotionPro only lists 39mm and 41mm seal drivers. Can I use the 41?

https://www.motionpro.com/product/08-0489

[Lucky Phil]

41 minutes ago, docc said:

My seal leak is "better" but not acceptable. MySport has the early 40mm Marzocchi. MotionPro only lists 39mm and 41mm seal drivers. Can I use the 41?

https://www.motionpro.com/product/08-0489

Try this docc. I just bought this type for my 43mm forks but haven't used it yet. Whats important on my 43mm forks is they use a DCY style seal which is a style that requires the driver impacts the seal as close as possible to the seal OD or the seal will get damaged on install. In my case this driver for mine has an OD of 53mm which is good for my seal OD of 54mm. The other seal driver kit I have would have damaged the seal as the OD wasn't big enought and would have impacted the seal lip area . I don't know what the seal OD is on the 40mm forks, probably the same 54mm so the seals are "probably" 40x54x11DCY seals, probably! Ariete ARI 118 seals for the 43mm forks. They look decent but can't really comments as yet on their performance. 

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/333761384556?chn=ps&_ul=AU&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=705-139619-5960-0&mkcid=2&itemid=333761384556&targetid=&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9071372&poi=&campaignid=15791083372&mkgroupid=&rlsatarget=&abcId=9300816&merchantid=494522638&gclid=CjwKCAjw7cGUBhA9EiwArBAvojbdH8n1XK_zaFD6k-C4YLSxPAqfYRwCYmooK3wPRD69nteFt0XV-xoCOd8QAvD_BwE

[docc]

Yeah, I keep seeing 40-41mm seal drivers applicable to my 40mm fork seals.

Truth?

[Lucky Phil]

43 minutes ago, docc said:

Yeah, I keep seeing 40-41mm seal drivers applicable to my 40mm fork seals.

Truth?

Poor images I know but here is the difference between DCY and DC seals. The DC seal has a raised outer sealing lip and the DCY it's flush with the surface. The other image is of my 42/43 seal driver and shows somewhat how it sits almost in the sealing lip spring recess when in use. Not good and will ruin the seal. I didn't even attempt to use it. So the driver needs to impact the seal as close to the OD as possible and still fit inside the fork leg ID. The seals I pulled out of my 43mm forks had been damaged on instillation by the seal driver.

 

This might also be an option. I've seen a Youtube video where the guy used one. 

https://de.aliexpress.com/item/33007086461.html?gatewayAdapt=glo2deu