Fork tube condition

[Jim Mac]

I have taken the forks on my xj11 apart for a rebuild. One side was leaking so bad that the brake calliper and rotor on that side are soaked in oil. I was lucky to find a set of nos fork seals. This is a picture of the fork tube on the bad side before being disassembled. The scoring is minor but can anyone tell me if it is bad enough to have casued the leaking? I don’t want to waste a fork seal!

[LAB3]

Kinda hard to tell without seeing it in person, if you run the edge of your finger nail across it does it catch on anything? If not you could polish it up with some 600 grit sandpaper followed by 1500 grit to make it look a bit nicer.

Makes me wonder about the condition of the fork bushings inside the lower leg, that's something you can check on disassembly.

[Tonyxs11]

Kinda hard to tell without seeing it in person, if you run the edge of your finger nail across it does it catch on anything? If not you could polish it up with some 600 grit sandpaper followed by 1500 grit to make it look a bit nicer.

Makes me wonder about the condition of the fork bushings inside the lower leg, that's something you can check on disassembly.

yeah i agree, if its not as bad as it looks in the pic then polishing it would help, and fit new bushes. the problem with polishing is it will dull the shine on the chrome but better than an oil leak

[Jim Mac]

Thanks for this. Once the forks were apart I discovered a bigger problem which explained why one of the lowers wasn’t sliding smoothly once the springs were removed. The lower brackets (I think Yamaha calls them a lower oil seal) has a notch where the drain screw fits. On both forks this had not been aligned when previously assembled essentially making each fork a different length. Wow. One bracket was all the way to the bottom of the lower and the drain screw tightened in the wrong place (twice!) amd on the other it appears that the drain plug was installed first causing the whole assembly to sit on top of the drain plug bolt. This has cause a stress fracture on the bracket. I guess I’ll find out soon enough if any further damage inside the lower exists.

[LAB3]

That's unfortunate, the "sins of the previous owner" have been passed along to you. Trying to fix what you have could very well end up costing more than replacement, a quick look on eBay shows plenty of sets available in the $110 range. Looks like one particular seller has cornered the market on XJ forks!

[Jim Mac]

Thanks Lab I’ll have to check that out. Suddenly that $350 parts bike I said no to a few months back sounds like a better deal.

[jetmechmarty]

With used forks purchased on the internet, you stand a good chance of buying junk. Try this: Fork Bushings - CSR Suspension LLC

Fork oil changes are far too often neglected.

[LAB3]

With used forks purchased on the internet, you stand a good chance of buying junk. Try this: Fork Bushings - CSR Suspension LLC

Fork oil changes are far too often neglected.

Looks like he has parts of the inner leg that need replacement as well as possible damage to the legs themselves aside from possible worn bushings which is why I made the suggestion to replace them.