Forking around with Lucille - Part II and Product Test - The SealMate...

[MaxPete]

Well sportsfans, I granted myself a 2-hour reprieve from working today to try to get Lucille's slender but attractive 34mm legs back in good shape. You will recall that in June 2017 I replaced her fork tubes, oil seals and I also replaced the original dust seals with a pair of MikesXS rubber dust seals.

After two years of service, the dust seals have totally died (see above) and so I did what I should have done in the first danged place and tracked down a set of OEM dust seals. Today, I replaced the shredded MikesXS parts with the OEM items and things look MUCH better now. Along the way I ran across what seemed like a pretty cool little tool - the Seal Mate - that claims to prolong the life of fluid seals by cleaning grit out of the seal while it is still installed in whatever it is installed...in (yuk - poor grammar there). Sorry Winston Churchill, who once declared that "ending a sentence with a preposition was something up-with-which he would not put").
But, I digress....
I am a sucker for tools...so I bought a couple from the Canadian parts supplier FortNine.com (www.fortnine.com) and soon, I had four of these things to play with.
Anyhow - the Seal Mate (photo below) is a devilishly simple little item that consists of a sheet of plastic (thinner than a credit card and somewhat more flexible) with a hook shaped profile. You are instructed to slip the hook portion down between the seal and that which the seal is...sealing (geeezz..I'm still doing it again). Then you rotate the Seal Mate around the item and "dig" out any grit or other debris which is supposed to leave a nice clean slidey surface for the seal to..you know, seal (and no smart-@ss cracks about "blown seals" or "seals taking a leak" please).

Here is a video of the Seal Mate tool in action:

The issue I have is - that I could NOT get the Seal Mate down into the oil seal on Lucille's forks.

I tried and tried and eventually messed up the tool to the point where <I think> it is ruined.

Soooo....much as I like Motion Pro products, and I did follow the instructions, I simply could not make this thing work. Accordingly, I must label the Motion Pro Seal Mate as - a FAIL (along, of course, with the MikesXS rubber dust seals - which will come as no surprise to many on this forum).

Fortunately, I have three more Seal Mates to mess around with and so if anyone has a better experience with the Seal Mate - please comment and tell me how the heck you got the thing down in there....'cause I couldn't.

Pete

 

[Jim]

Pete,
you might want to add a comment about the dust boots here.

 

[5twins]

I happen to have that tool but haven't yet tried to use it. But, I did recently refer to the info in the tool's description (dirty seals leak) when I renovated the '83 forks. The original seals weren't leaking badly, just weeping a bit. I figured they were probably just all dirty inside and it turned out to be true. So, I didn't replace them, just cleaned them up real good. Then, I applied a tip I learned when researching oil seals last year, specifically to pack the cavity between the lips on a double lip seal with grease .....

I used my new favorite rubber lube, that red rubber grease .....

I'll be keeping an eye on the seals for the next few hundred miles to see how this is going to work out (or not, lol).

 

[MaxPete]

Pete,
you might want to add a comment about the dust boots here.

Good thought Jim - and done.

5Twins - yup - that grease appears to be a good idea too!

 

[DogBunny]

Nice product review, sorry that it hasn't worked for you so far.
I remember reading about the Seal Mate a couple of years ago. I thought it was a good idea, but then I forgot about it until reading your post. One of the things I read, was that a lot of people were making their own out of milk jugs or soda bottles. So, I decided to give it a try.

I chose a water bottle with an unusually small diameter in order to better match the O.D. of the fork leg. I made a little hook like the real Seal Mate has -- the hook is right on the red button of the free-with-purchase Harbor Freight scissors that I used to make the tool.

Here is the tool in use. I used it on a pair of old legs that are eventually going to be disassembled. It worked well on both, and pulled out some gunk from both. When I re-did both legs, the tool came out pretty clean, so I guess it did its job the first time.
Maybe it went in fairly easily for me because these were old seals, I don't know.
In both of my pics, you will note "score" marks on the bottom two inches of the tool -- that was from using the tool, rolling it around the tube with my palm. The fact that it scored so easily indicates to me that the plastic I used was pretty soft -- a good thing, I think, because I don't think it is hard enough to damage the seal.
I need to try it on some newer seals and some other forks.
I too look forward to hearing other's experiences.

 

[MaxPete]

Thanks DogBunny - I haven't given up yet, but I do need to figure out how to get the danged thing in there.

 

[GLJ]

I haven't given up yet, but I do need to figure out how to get the danged thing in there.

I'm sure every young man has said that to himself at least once.

 

[DogBunny]

I think there may still be some potential life left in the Seal Mate that you bent.
Before I scissor cut the hook into mine, I gave it a test while it was still a rectangle, i.e. I tried to get a sharp 90 degree corner into my seal. I cut the hook shape after that was successful.
Perform some surgery on your bent Seal Mate. Try a sharp 90. The point should get under the seal easier, and the broad corner will give more backing strength than the thin hook.

 

[Mailman]

Well sportsfans, I granted myself a 2-hour reprieve from working today to try to get Lucille's slender but attractive 34mm legs back in good shape. You will recall that in June 2017 I replaced her fork tubes, oil seals and I also replaced the original dust seals with a pair of MikesXS rubber dust seals.
View attachment 142627
After two years of service, the dust seals have totally died (see above) and so I did what I should have done in the first danged place and tracked down a set of OEM dust seals. Today, I replaced the shredded MikesXS parts with the OEM items and things look MUCH better now. Along the way I ran across what seemed like a pretty cool little tool - the Seal Mate - that claims to prolong the life of fluid seals by cleaning grit out of the seal while it is still installed in whatever it is installed...in (yuk - poor grammar there). Sorry Winston Churchill, who once declared that "ending a sentence with a preposition was something up-with-which he would not put").
But, I digress....
I am a sucker for tools...so I bought a couple from the Canadian parts supplier FortNine.com (www.fortnine.com) and soon, I had four of these things to play with.
Anyhow - the Seal Mate (photo below) is a devilishly simple little item that consists of a sheet of plastic (thinner than a credit card and somewhat more flexible) with a hook shaped profile. You are instructed to slip the hook portion down between the seal and that which the seal is...sealing (geeezz..I'm still doing it again). Then you rotate the Seal Mate around the item and "dig" out any grit or other debris which is supposed to leave a nice clean slidey surface for the seal to..you know, seal (and no smart-@ss cracks about "blown seals" or "seals taking a leak" please).

Here is a video of the Seal Mate tool in action:

The issue I have is - that I could NOT get the Seal Mate down into the oil seal on Lucille's forks.
View attachment 142628
I tried and tried and eventually messed up the tool to the point where <I think> it is ruined.
View attachment 142629
Soooo....much as I like Motion Pro products, and I did follow the instructions, I simply could not make this thing work. Accordingly, I must label the Motion Pro Seal Mate as - a FAIL (along, of course, with the MikesXS rubber dust seals - which will come as no surprise to many on this forum).

Fortunately, I have three more Seal Mates to mess around with and so if anyone has a better experience with the Seal Mate - please comment and tell me how the heck you got the thing down in there....'cause I couldn't.

Pete

Nice review Pete,
Sorry it didn’t work better for you. I forgot you had that nifty bike lift in your garage. A real back saver!

 

[mrtwowheel]

NEVER had any problems using mine. Fixed every leak that I've ever used it on. Watch the video, clean and lube before using, roll it tight around the fork tube and it slides down into the seal, easy.

Scott

 

[TwoManyXS1Bs]

Here's Dogbunny's old thread:

http://www.xs650.com/threads/has-anyone-tried-motion-pro-seal-mate-fork-seal-repair-tool.48073/

 

[OHRider]

I wish I had knowledge about the Sealmate before I paid paid the Triumph shop $250+ to replace the seals on my 800 Tiger.