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By Spudgun
#100289
I've always had the feeling that my 1999 500 Lightning was a bit of a Friday afternoon special. When I first checked it over. It had loose nuts and bolts. It even had a couple missing. Anyway....

After 11 years of ownership. One of the front forks started leaking. Not bad really. The seals were over 20 years old. If I'm going to change the seals in one fork. I might as well do both. I've just dismantled the lower forks and I was presented with a bit of a horror story.

One circlip had rusted away (I'm not complaining really). The other circlip was missing. Even worse. There were supposed to be two seals in each leg. There was only one! The seals hadn't been driven all the down the leg. So from the top. Everything looked fine.

What a bodge!
#100290
And yet they remained oil-tight for 11 years!

Enfield forks baffle me. I have Japanese bikes which have bushings keeping them to the tightest tolerances and minimal play. They have full cartridge damper systems, guided springs and the highest of high quality seals with proper dust seals over the top of them... Yet they seem to leak for fun.

They throw a set onto an enfield with a shonky, wobbly damper rod, no bushing other than the fit inside the leg and a couple of cheap crappy seals with no dust seal and they remain oiltight for decades.
#100291
Well. I've managed to break one lower leg while trying to get the seal out. I got the other one out after a fight. The seals were the 1999 originals and they managed to weld themselves to the legs.

Mr H is about to get a very nice order!
#100296
Our Indian friends were still fitting drum brake forks to 350 home market UCE Bullets until fairly recently, but with the more modern internals as used on the EFI Bullets since 2009. You can still get these, just to note they have plain stanchion tops instead of threaded, so you'd need a fork yoke or casquette headlamp casting to suit (available from our hosts, of course). I have a set on my Redditch 350 project.

A.

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#100298
stinkwheel wrote:
Sun Mar 06, 2022 7:53 pm
Wheaters wrote:
Sun Mar 06, 2022 5:17 pm
I've not seen one yet - is this fork top protector tool basically a "load spreader lip" designed to sit on top of the ally leg whilst you lever out the old seal? :?:
Exactly that. Part number: ST25114

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Thanks! Quite a simple device, then.

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