Forking Fork seals

July 5^th, 2026

Fairbank, Alaska

Woke up around 7 and dressed to go look at the bike.

Spent some time removing the front fender and cleaning all the built-up oil and dirt from the forks.

Popped the dust cap seals up and cleaned around and inside the fork as best as possible, did get more oil and lots of grime.

Put the dust caps back into place and cleaned a 2^nd time to get any last bits of dirt.

Bike was still a bit oily, so decided I would run over to a nearby car wash and give it a good hose down.  There was still lots of built-up dirt all over the lower part of the bike and luggage, so probably good idea.

I found a car wash not far and also laundromat just a block away from there.

Gathered the dirty laundry and a few things and rode to car wash.

Spent about 5 minutes cleaning the forks and fender, and spraying the lower parts of bike off.  Also gave a quick spray to the luggage and front part of bike, enough to get heavy dirt and some of the bugs, but not all.

They went up a block to the laundry place.

Went inside and walked all over to find a machine.  1/3 of the machines were out of order and everything else was full, except one top loading washer.  Put my clothes in, and then tried to find changer. 

Turns out they do not have one, need to get change from counter person, who never seems to be at counter.  5 minutes later I had my $5 in quarters.  Went to insert first one and slot is jammed with another quarter?

Ask and the attendant is oh yea, out of order.  Well, think you could have put up a sign?  Or did they run out as so many were broken.

By now at least 4 more people were in looking, so decided to hell with this place and left.  There were a few people in there I saw checking at least 10 machines, and these tend to be high-capacity machines, so did they wait 2 months to do laundry or something?

I found another place across town, but its really just a 10-minute ride, so figured I would go over there.

Much larger place, much bigger machines and lots of them.

Found an empty machine, huge things, but no way to put money in.

Went to counter and asked.  They have some kind of cashless system, have to get a card from a kiosk to use on the machines.

So started process, had to pay $1 to get the card, and no, that money is not put on the card, just gone!  They had to add money to the card in whole dollar amounts.  As I had no clue what machine I was using, I could not figure out the price list, so assumed it was the smaller machine as I had not seen smaller.

Put $10 on card, when over to machine and it was $15 for a load!!!!

So put another $10 on card, then activated machine.  Since I was using cold wash instead of warm wash, I saved $1, so $14 for a load.

I walked around a bit and found smaller machines on other side, so I used way to large a machine, could have washed for $8 in smaller machine.

Once washing was done, went over to dryers and they were all $6 to run.  That gives you 25 minutes, but still!!

Then had some odd issue where I tried to use the card on top dryer and it did not work, but it had actually put the money on the bottom dryer.

Just cannot believe they took a simple process like washing clothes and over complicated it to this degree!

So now have a card with 20 cents still on it, never get used of course.

Also noticed here people with 5 or 6 huge bags of clothes, again, do they wait months between laundry?

Left the laundry as was going to eat at sub shop in parking lot next door.

Took a wrong turn and missed the connection between the lots, so had to get on street.

Did not turn into gas station as I wanted building on other side, but of course no way to turn in there, so had to go down and around the block to come back in the backside and find the building.

Then I managed to get inside 30 seconds before an entire tour bus dumped itself on the restaurant.

So busy, noisy place while trying to eat.

Once done I got out of there, managed to get in wrong lane and end up going a few miles around to get back to highway again.

Got back to hotel and checked the seals, they are all wet again!

Thinking it could just be from the car wash, water working out of crack, I dried it all up again.

I then let it sit awhile, and went to office to see if I could reserve two more nights at the room.  Thankfully they had the space, so reserved it, but did not pay yet.

Took the bike for 40-minute drive around the entire city on the highways that circle the town.

Once back, found it leaking quite heavily again, definitely still bad, the dust caps were not the issue (though probably bad as well as so much is getting out).

Went ahead and paid for the room nights.

So now I am $400 more out of pocket to wait as none of the bike shops are open on Monday!

Will call Suzuki on Tues morning, see what they can do, and also have a place across from the hotel, but looks more like just snowmobile place (50 of them sitting in lot).

If either can get me in on Tuesday, have the parts and fix it, then we are good.

If not, but can get me in on Wednesday, still good.

If not, then trip is over.

I might see if the shops in Whitehorse can do something, would take 2 days to get there, get fixed and still able to do the Dempster, but looking like the Dalton is not going to happen.

Guess we will find out in a few days.

For now, will spend tonight catching up on these blogs, doing a few other small tasks related to it and work on video stuff. 

Probably just walk over to Arby’s for dinner tonight, only thing close, and do not want to ride bike anywhere tonight, just mentally and physically drained right now.

A bit later I got to thinking, the small store card I was using earlier was not flexible enough to insert into the seal inside the fork, so I just cleaned the dust cap seal. 

I really need to clean the actual fork seal, and recalled something about a plastic bottle.

Some research found those references and the other data on the special tool made just for this; however, I could not find any confirmed location of that tool being sold anywhere here in Fairbanks.  Wal-Mart carries them, but not in stock here.

Amazon will take a week to get one here, so that’s not an option either.

So cut the empty water bottle I had down to approximate shape and went out and popped off the dust seals and clean everything, then tried that home made tool.  On the left side it went in okay, but really did not bring out much dirt.

The right side pulled out lots of grime, so still a bit unsure if they are clean, will test ride tomorrow and I am just not in the mood to gear up now and already paid for the extra room nights, so staying 2 more nights regardless.

Will still call on Tuesday, see if I can get someone bit more skilled to check it out, or perhaps they will have correct tool to try cleaning to see if that will resolve issue for now.

So, catch you down the road?  Guess we will see.