‘The handling must have been horrendous’
Tissue is no way to fix a fork seal…
When mechanic Chris Davies saw a battered Suzuki Bandit 600 pull up, he suspected he was going to have his work cut out.
Chris, 41, works at Davies Motorcycles in Ilkeston and has been in the bike trade for 21 years, so he’s seen most things and the only ‘maintenance’ this poor old Bandit had received was a classic bodge job.
A rough patch on the righthand fork leg (probably from a stone chip) had lead to the seal failing. But instead of going for a proper fix by a professional, the owner had packed tissues under the fork seal cap to soak up the spillage. That hadn’t worked for long and the oil had been pumped out past the drenched tissue before trickling onto the brake caliper and all over the pads.
Chris said: “There was no oil left in the fork, so the handling must have been horrendous as well as having no brakes. All it would have taken was a car pulling out or a big pothole and he’d have been down.”
It only cost the about £150 to put it all right, but the consequences could have been horrendous. All he had to do was check his bike over regularly and he would have seen that oil was starting to appear on the fork tube at a certain place, then he could have found the cause simply by running a fingernail up and down the leg, feeling for that rough patch, before getting the tube repaired and a crisp new seal in there.
When buying a used bike it’s always worth doing that check yourself, as well as sliding any dust caps out of the way before pumping the forks up and down to inspect for leaks.