Red: Fork Seal Saga, Part 3

Let's recap...

• Found the left fork leak quite early on, back in May
• Bought a pair of fork bottoms ($39)
• Absolutely destroyed one of them trying to remove the seal
• But used the other one to replace Red's left unit (Part 1, June 1)
• This seemed to stop the leak.. for awhile anyway
• Then in July, the right side starting leaking
• Bought a complete set of forks ($88, though very perished)
• Used one of the units to replace Red's right side (Part 2, July 21)
• But only a week later, found that both sides were leaking again

Realized I could gamble on eBay forks forever and it's just luck of the draw on whether I would get a decent one or not.  And forget about actually trying to swap the fork seal itself...

Then had the thought that the forks are not a precision unit.  If oil is leaking out the top, why not just try to "plug" the leak?  Thought maybe I could just add my own o-rings into the mix.

Got a bunch of different sizes at Ace for about $.80 a pop.

Had the day off of work (gotta love Summer Fridays) and plenty of time.  Getting at the forks is becoming routine at this point.

Removed both forks and swapped to the new "golden" colored springs, thinking that they were stiffer.

Then I added a #19 and a #20 on top of the fork seal unit but under the metal washer so that the spring would hold them tight in place.

Also switched down to 10 weight old (instead of 15).

Ended up being two steps back...

While it seemed to stop the left side leak, the right side was still leaking.  Not only that but the gold springs caused the forks to bind on compression and you had to force them back up into place.  Thought maybe that condition would only exist in the garage but an afternoon ride confirmed that they were binding no matter what.