[ydant]

EX is a 93. Forks have up to 42k miles on them - maintenance history is unknown.

I just pulled the forks off to rebuild them. I had noticed the left one was leaking oil. Plus, I want to try to stiffen up the suspension a bit - the bike's diving and bottoming out way too easily under hard braking.

The left one has given me all sorts of problems: leaking, was a pain to get out of the clamps, and close inspection has revealed these scratches and nicks. Is it worth rebuilding it, or are the scratches going to cause me problems?

They aren't horribly deep but are enough to feel with your fingers. Hopefully the pictures are clear enough. All are below the lower clamp.

I read through "Forking around" and Fog mentions:

Before re assembling inspect the tubes very carefully for any knocks and stone them smooth.

What is stoning in this context?

Thank you for any assistance.

[attachment deleted by admin]

 

[ydant]

I found a little more info on the stoning here - of course more from FOG.

http://www.ex-500.com/index.php/topic,1779.msg20362.html

Reading that thread, though, it sounds like if I can visibly see the nicks then I'm screwed. :-/

 

[Frog]

yes, those nicks (or spots that are done by little rocks) looks like a moon crater at a smaller scale.

Having a fork seal rub against that will chew it down..

try the stoning thing and you might be lucky, cost much less to attempt and save them than to go buy new forks

then if it doesn't work, at least you'll know you did what you could

using fork boots can prevent this.

 

[ydant]

I'm definitely putting boots on after this. There are a few sets of forks on ebay, but it looks like I'm going to be in the $120 range. At least that's better than buying new inner tubes OEM - just the inner tubes, each, are more than two full forks.

After even more reading, I don't think stoning them is going to fix these scratches.