'02 KTM/WP fork seal replacement

[madwrench]

My '02 EXC200 blew a fork seal on the first enduro. I'm trying to obtain a manual before I tear into it, but I really need to do it before the weekend, and I don't know if I'll have a manual by then. I've had lots of KDX, etc. forks apart, but never one of these. Anything I should be careful of? Any tricks to make things easier?
THANKS!

 

[WhiPit]

It's easy:

Remove the top cap and spring, drain the oil, remove the seal retaining clip and "slide-hammer" the two halves apart. Take care not to cut the seal when you install the new one over the chrome tube.

I would suggest you invest in a good seal driver. That's more important than a manual.

BTW, standard oil height is 140mm. Use a good 5 weight oil.

 

[rollingp]

Tighten the seal springs on the new seals before you install them because wp seals have low spring tension and thats why they leak.
Unscrew the two halves and cut out 5 mm and reconnect them.
Do that on the dust wipers also.
Chances are your stock seal is still good also.

 

[Jeremy Wilkey]

If I might Add that its a good idea to make sure the washer between the bushings is flat.. Often when "hammering" :scream: the tubes apart it will bend..

A little heat on the outer tube helps too..

WP makes these wicked fork seal bullets.... Or you can "bag em"

Regards,
Jer

PS... Seals leak from Dirt.. But I agree The Nitrile based Oil seals on the WP seem to be very durable.. You can clean them and exspect them to continue to work..

 

[Bonehead]

O.K. This will get a few responses. 5mm? That’s like a 1/4 or.25 of an inch.
You can save the stock fork seals by tacking maybe 2 lengths out of the spring, not .25 of an inch.
Two lengths is more like 1/16 of an inch. To do this first hammer the fork seals out, pop the spring out of the seal.
Unscrew the spring, grind the thick end of the spring off by two lengths, put the spring back in the seal, and slide the fork back together. The cheapest seal driver is the last set of seals you took out. If you have an old set of seals, place the seal you want to use on the fork then hammer on the old, to place the new.

P.S. I have never had to fix leaky fork seals after doing this.
PSS make sure the keeper washer is flat like Jeremy says.

 

[euro gasgas]

One of the european gasgas websites has a WP 4357 service manual - it's an adobe acrobat pdf document once you unpack it using winzip. Here is the link to it...

www.mttracing.se/download/wp.zip

If you don't already have a copy of winzip you can download it from here...
http://download.com.com/3405-20-871449.html?part=50220&subj=dlfpp&tag=button

Enjoy...

jeff

 

[rollingp]

5mm works just fine, I have been cutting that much out of them for years. The wp stock seal especially.
KTMs (98) were bad about leaking and suspension shops made lots of money replacing seals that didnt need to be replaced on those 98 and 99 bikes. Once cut down they would never leak again and seal savers were not needed. I worked on many up until this past year. I am on my 6th new KTM and one of the first things I had to do was tighten the seal springs on my 2002 sx.

 

[agitt73]

my right seal was leaking on my bike i just pulled down the dust
seal and cleaned the inner seal with a peice of 35mm camera
film between the tube and seal then i smotherd the dust seal in
white lith greese and it has not leaked since

 

[madwrench]

Thanks for all the help!! I may just try cleanup (per agitt73) and see if it gets me through this weekend (just play riding after trail maintenance), but I will definitely tighten the springs on the new seals when I put 'em in prior to next race.

 

[WhiPit]

Jer,

you mean those washers aren't supposed to be beveled like that?!? :scream:


;)