Updating my 85

[Bill W.]

After having another fork seal blow out on my way home from work the other day, I've decided to take the plunge and put newer forks and calipers on my 85. Already ordered new seals, dust covers, and assorted bushings to rebuild my Ebay purchased forks from an 87 Venture. My brakes are already delinked (thanks Earl!), it should be a piece of cake, once all of my parts get here. Never did like bleeding brakes, but that's why I have a vacuum bleeder. Already have a master cylinder from an 86 on the bike, so braking should be good once I'm done.

 

I've replaced seals and bushings, I've sanded and polished, buffed and cleaned upper tubes til I'm blue in the face, and the seals still leak. I've nearly every thread on this site about fork seals, and I'm tired of changing a seal every time I run over a bump in the road. I've changed everything except the lowers, that's why I'm going with newer stuff. My 85 just turned over 56K miles, most of them mine. It's a good running bike, starts every morning, still gets 40 MPG(only if I keep it under 70) and I'm a happy owner. And because of this site and all of the good people that post here, I've learned things about my bike that I would have never guessed, and performed maintenance I would've never tried on my own.

 

I'm hoping this will be an easy task, with no surprises. Call me crazy, but I am looking forward to this swap. It's something I've never done before, it'll be fun to do, and the end result will be completely worth the effort. Plus, if I run into trouble, answers are only a couple of mouse clicks away!

[BlueSky]

Sanding the tubes longitudinally will cause leaks I think. It needs to be done circumferentially. Or at least that is true for rebuilding auto wheel cylinders.