Hello everyone.
Are the fork inner tubes on your bike dirty?
Rust on the inner tubes can damage the fork seals and cause fork oil leaks.
What happens if fork oil leaks?
- The forks move less smoothly and the ride gets worse
- The front tyre's grip suffers and the bike becomes harder to ride
- Fork oil gets on the brake pads and disc and the brakes stop working properly
These things can happen.
The first step to preventing them is to inspect and clean the fork inner tubes.
So here's how I clean the inner tubes. It's easy.
On the G650GS, the inner tubes aren't covered by fork boots, so they need cleaning often.
I use my usual VuPlex.
Spray on VuPlex and wipe gently with a cloth.
The thing to watch here is the direction you move the cloth.
Move the cloth around the circumference of the inner tube.
There's a reason for this.
If cleaning leaves vertical scratches, fork oil may leak out along them.
Clean the other tube in the same way.
Both are clean now.
Left: before cleaning
Right: after cleaning
It's hard to see in the photo, but it's clean now.
And...
While cleaning, I found flaking chrome and a spot of rust.
I plan to fix it soon.
Incidentally, when spots of rust like this start to multiply, the inner tubes need re-chroming.
For re-chroming inner tubes, see this post too (in Japanese).
It costs money, so I think regular inspection and cleaning works out cheaper in the end.
I've also written a guide to servicing XR250 / BAJA front forks, from strip-down to oil, springs and re-chroming (in Japanese).
Fork boots keep the inner tubes clean in the first place. Here is how I fitted them to F650GS forks: