I changed my fork oil today and one of the seals has failed miserably during the process. It didn't seem to be leaking when I took it off the bike, the slider was dry. In the process of draining the oil out the top of the fork I got a bit on the slider, and then noticed while pumping it that I was accumulating a fair amount of oil on the slider with each pump. So now that I think of it, the problem may have been the seal was already bad, and inverting it to pump it was allowing oil to bypass the seal and get on the slider.
I'm thinking next time I'll use the bleeder screw on the bottom to keep the slider as dry as possible during the pumping process. I used to do it that way years ago, and made a special container out of a 2.5 gal water jug that I cut, but I threw it out a few years back because it got old and brittle.
So this got me to thinking, is it OK to get a little oil on the slider while pumping out the old oil, as long as you clean it all up afterwards? Or will that oil have negative effects on the seal?
I'm thinking next time I'll use the bleeder screw on the bottom to keep the slider as dry as possible during the pumping process. I used to do it that way years ago, and made a special container out of a 2.5 gal water jug that I cut, but I threw it out a few years back because it got old and brittle.
So this got me to thinking, is it OK to get a little oil on the slider while pumping out the old oil, as long as you clean it all up afterwards? Or will that oil have negative effects on the seal?