2011 GTASportriders Victoria Day trip to the Blue Ridge Parkway

I signed up for the annual May long weekend ride with the GTASportriders, the plan, to ride for four days, two down and two back from Toronto down to Salem Virginia and back again, but via the twistiest most fun filled squiggles on a map that we could find.

My Fork Seals are Leaking!!!

The GTASportriders.com and I have been planning our annual ride for Canada's Victoria Day weekend, and I've had some problems with the bike that had to be sorted out before riding away on a two thousand kilometer trip down south.

My fork seals started to leak on the left leg of my 2004 Kawasaki KLR 650, so I ordered in a set of aftermarket seals from Aviciouscycle.ca , the "All Balls" line that they carry. The advertisement reads that they last three to five times longer than OEM seals, so I thought I'd try them as I've gone through seals before.

If you have a slow leak, have a look down at the bottom to see if you can save yourself some trouble by using a quick fix called "Sealmate".

'87 - '07 KLR650 Fork Seals

The big thing was I was going to have a stab at replacing them myself. I did some research and found a method on the internet that allows you to unseat the seals and blow them out using compressed air delivered by a bicycle pump, compressor or shop air.

It's a Messy,

messy,

messy business.

To start off, I needed to remove the fork legs so I got the bike onto

it's stand and trussed it up to the roof of the garage and the sides
so that I could work without fear of it toppling over on top of me.

Once the fork legs are off, I cleaned them up so no dirt would find
it's way into the internals of the forks, and proceeded to open the
drain holes at the bottom and drain both forks. This was the messy
part. The oil dribbles out slowly, so you think to speed up the
process by compressing the fork, and instantly a three foot jet of oil
launches itself across your garage floor, straight over top of the oil
drain pan you were aiming for. Okay, there's another way to skin this
cat!!! I hooked up my air compressor to the top of the Schrader valve
and turned on the air while aiming the drain hole directly at the oil
basin. Success! A last blast of oil and I was done!.

Now I replaced the drain screw and made sure it was nice and tight,
then removed the fork seal retaining ring, and wrapped a rag around
the shiny fork tube with a zip tie to hold it in place, then slid that
down on top of the seals. I turned on the compressor again and watched
the gauge as it began to pressurize the seals, 20 pounds of air, then
50, now 80 and near 100 I heard a telltale hiss of escaping air. Sure
enough they'd risen in the well and I was able to carefully prise them
out with my snap-on hook set and a very small screwdriver.

Now I ran into a problem, I had purchased a fork seal driver for the
newer 2008 and later model of KLR, a 41mm fork seal driver, so when I
moistened the new seals with fluid and slid them over the tube, I
couldn't apply sufficient pressure to drive them home into the well so
I could replace the retaining clips!

I posted a question on a couple of the boards I frequent, measured the
diameter of the fork leg, put a new seal in my pocket and went to Home
Depot to look for a piece of PVC pipe that would fit over the inner
fork tube, but fit within the well of the outer fork leg completely
clearing it's edge by 1 millimeter at least. I found that the 1-1/2"
PVC DWV pipe was exactly what I needed so I bought a precut four foot
length and headed home to find that my question had been answered:

"invert the pvc pipe and thump the whole assembly into the ground."

so in essence, use a bigger hammer. Now we're talking!!! I placed a
chunk of old 2x4 on the ground which I'd had laying around for a dogs
age, and proceeded to have a go at thumping in the seal and dust cover
in one go.

Mission success! With one massive blow that left a ring gouged into
the soft spruce 2x4, both seals had set and I was able to easily
install the retaining ring on my test leg. I reinstalled the fork
legs, then was in for a brand new adventure, removing the springs and
refilling with oil. In anticipation of this job I'd ordered in a tool from Yamaha XS650
that would make it a precision job to both accurately measure the
fluid and to level each leg identically.

Fork oil level gauge

 Basically it was a hollow
tube with a ring nut attached to a syringe via a plastic tube. You fill the fork leg, set the adjustable ring to the correct depth on the hollow tube, and set the tube into the fork. The ring sits on the top edge of the fork, and you easily draw out the excess fluid into the syringe and deposit it back in the container.

My next gaff was after removing the springs, was to attempt to fillthe fork leg while still at full full extension! It kept sucking back more and more of the fluid, and as I'd odered it online from New
Dundee in the Kitchener/Waterloo area, I didn't think my chances of getting another litre bottle would be good so riding was out for the foreseeable future. Darn it! :(

I took a break, had some dinner, then decided it was time to RTFM
(Read The Freaking Manual) where I found that the fork fluid was
measured at full COMPRESSION, not extension. Whew! I headed back out
to the garage and began to compress the fork leg, to find that I'd
obviously overfilled it and should have raised the leg a bit more
slowly as I lost a dribble or two over onto the tank and onto the
muffler. Doh!

Okay, that fork done and set at 188mm below the top edge which seemed
a middle of the road compromise at the time with no previous
reference. I sport tour and get into the dirt once in a while, so I
wanted a good ride over lousy pavement, but great handling mid corner
as well as being able to take a trail without bottoming, and this
seemed like a middle of the road safe guess.

One of the fork caps was a bit cross threaded so I had to clean up the
soft aluminium thread with a needle file before it went home and
sealed properly.

Now to put the wheel back on and clean up this unholy mess! I'll do my
own seals again, and maybe even go for complete fork disassembly, but
I'd prefer to pay someone else to do it and work some overtime to pay
for it. ;)

Did I mention it's a messy job?

2012-12-29 Update:

22,000 kilometres and the Trans Labrador Highway later, and they're doing fine, thank you very much. ;)

Are your forks dirty and now leaking slightly? Perhaps you can salvage your seals by cleaning out grit and dirt that might be letting oil slip through. It's a ten dollar fix that might be worth a try, or you could cobble something together with a stiff piece of plastic from an old set of window blinds or something...

Add caption

 Check out their product here: http://www.sealmate.net/

And read a story about my 2009 Kawasaki Versys 650 that needed some TLC on a leaking fork seal... Seal Mate was the answer for that one.  https://www.ridereports.ca/2016/05/leaking-fork-seals-solved.html

Riding up to the Cottage?

A new rider on a forum I frequent asked the following question:

first long trip?

Hi,

I'm picking up my ninja 400r on May 24th (first day I can get my m2 licence), and I have a cottage trip on the 26th. Planning to take my bike up there, and its a 400km trip. I have no riding experience and will be taking the course a couple of days prior to getting my bike. Think its a good idea? I wanted to break my bike in while doing my first long distance ride.

I thought I'd share my response below, and add a couple of pictures for you at the same time. My concept was, if I can stop him, perhaps I can get him to think safety and limit his risk on the trip. Feel free to add in points that I've missed in the comments below.

Re: first long trip?

You're better off riding on Northern roads than you are down here in the city, but traffic volume heading up there on a long weekend is going to be pretty heavy.

Leave early. Try to be on the road before sunrise, and you can be far out of the city before the long weekend traffic even starts. Riding in the daytime means you don't have to risk riding at night on roads that team with wildlife such as raccoons, deer and moose not to mention the family dog out for a wander. Your headlights suck at night on lonely cottage roads, and with cornering you'll never see what you hit.

Bandit vs Deer

Sunrise over Port Perry

Bring something to clean your visor. At dusk swarms of bugs come out and while you may not notice them in a car, on a bike, you can felt up your visor so badly you may have to stop twice to clean it. BTW, this is prime time for the deer to be out. If you wear that neat tinted visor downtown and ride with it at night under the street lights, pack along your clear visor in case of rain, fog, or simply getting caught on the roads at dark.

Figure on an experienced rider on a sport bike riding for about 200km before a stop depending on tank range, so divide that by 80kph and you'll be able to plan your gas stops.

ALWAYS fill up before 8pm as many small towns roll up their sidewalks, and walking sucks.

Drink more water if the weather is warm. Your sweat gets whisked away by the wind as it cools you, you won't even feel hot, but you'll dehydrate even faster than you think. I always have at least 500ml of water in my tank bag along with my clear visor in an old sock and some cleaning fluid for the visor.

Buy a safety vest or better, a safety t-shirt in XXL to fit right overtop your riding jacket. It might seem lame now, but if you get caught in the dark or the rain, you'll thank me. You're not advertising that you're new, you're telling them "HERE I AM!!!" "DON'T HIT ME YOU CAGING MORONS!!!" 

The weather says that the daytime high is X degrees, but always dress for the night time lows, in layers so you can shed some for the heat of the day. Bring rain gear always, this is Onterrible.

Be careful passing and with your speed. I know following a truck and boat doing 70kph and three other cars is boring, but everyone on that road expects you to behave like a car, so signal clearly and don't overtake a dozen cars at a shot, they're impatient too, and probably not going to use their mirrors when they pull out to pass. Passing around corners or over blind hills leads is just plain stupid.

Don't tailgate. It's easy, but all it takes is brakelights while you're looking elsewhere and then we'll be hearing about how much it cost to get your bike fixed once you get out of the hospital. Leave yourself an out no matter what the situation, the only place where that's really tough is on the Don Valley Parkway or on the 400 on the Long Weekend.

Watch your speed on the corners, sometimes they're much harder than they look, have gravel, sand or dead animals lying where you can't see them. 

Program an In Case of Emergency ICE contact in your cellphone so that if they find you unconscious in a ditch they can tell Mom and Dad what hospital you're in. Do this even if you're riding with friends around Toronto, for most of the time, my mates have never met my ICE contacts. Fill out your donor card. <-- I hit a deer on the highway, a car, and almost smacked a cow and a moose. This comes from real world experience, not reading books or watching youtube.

Damn.

Read through V-Tom's fine research on "Sorry mate, I didn't see you." (SMIDSY) accidents and what you can do to avoid them. Riding up North is prime area for this type of thing, especially when Farmer Brown pulls out thinking you were doing 80kph towards him at the intersection, not 180kph. Remember that vest?

http://www.gtamotorcycle.com/vbforum...ghlight=smidsy

Breaking in the bike. Read the manual. Most breakin procedures tell you to do as much engine braking as possible, that will include rolling off the throttle while riding at speed so you lubricate and wear the bearing surfaces evenly, and avoiding extended runs at sustained rpm. Ask the break in question in the "technical" area of this forum, being certain to tell them what bike it is as well.

Can you realistically and safely make this trip at the peak of cottage season as a new inexperienced rider? Ask your instructors on the course how you did, and seek their advice regarding traffic. We're not your parents, and the final decision is always yours to make, nevertheless, err on the side of caution.

But most of all, if you decide to go for it, have a great time, post pictures and ride safe!

Motorcycle Throttle and Brake Lock

Here's an interesting piece of kit for motorcycle security, Grip Lock:

http://www.grip-lock.com/

Motorcycle Throttle and Brake Lock - webBikeWorld

Canada Dealers:

Motoretta Eurosport 45 Esandar Drive, Unit One Toronto Onatrio M4G 4C5 Canada Phone:+1 416 696 0600 Email: dgoss@motoretta.ca

Green City Motors Unit B 333 36 Ave. SE Calgary, AB Canada Phone:+1 403 457 2489 Email: ryan@greencitymotors.com

HUSQVARNA | THE SCREAMIN’ SWEDE THAT STARTED A RACING REVOLUTION « The Selvedge Yard

HUSQVARNA | THE SCREAMIN’ SWEDE THAT STARTED A RACING REVOLUTION « The Selvedge Yard

It's a great look at a revolutionary bike.