my left fork seal is leaking. i bought 2 new seals from my dealer and fluid. i usually do all my maintenance my self on my car so i figured this wouldint be much different. after doing alot of reading and learning how to do it i found alot of people are afraid to work on there front end. i realized it is different from a car and the front end of your bike ( or any part ) is not something to mess with if you dont know what your doing. so i called my dealer and they want 165 a fork. this is money i can justify for my safety but at the same time if i could do it my self i would rather save it towards something more important.

so im just curious to how many people will vote that they or i should do this my self or take it in?

i know you need special tools but if i have the push to do this myself i would spend a $100 or so on tools vs. taking it to someone to rape my wallet. plus i will start a collection of nice bike tools

 

it is an 01 F4i with 11k miles

 

I'm going to say that you ought to do do it yourself. Just get yourself a manual, use the proper tools, and take your time; seems straight foward, imo. My bike's right fork has that dirty greasy residue developing so it's going to need rebuilding here pretty soon. Here's a link in case you haven't seen it: LINK.

 

its pretty easy if you have a friend with experience who can help you the first time. if doing yourself the first time it can get way confusing in a hurry

 

Others say I'm nuts but I always change out the bushings while I'm in there. Last time was at 11K miles and even though the bushings looked decent I threw in a new set. What da heck, another $20 was no big deal (they'll cost you more cause you don't know the people I know ).

Anyway, I say if you can change oil and do a brake job without screwing anything up then you are more than able to change fork seals.

A couple things to remember:

• get everything ahead of time
• neatness counts
• if you have access to a machine shop some of the "special tools" can be made rather easily
• neatness counts
• make sure you have a place to put everything you take apart in order and that it is clean
• neatness counts
• make sure you get ALL the old fluid out and measure the new stuff precisely. A graduated cylinder is a little piece of heaven.
• if you take more than a day to do the job, cover everything so no dust or other contaminants get into your parts
• neatness counts

And if you have a digital camera make a how-to and post it up.

Good luck!