Topic: fork seals, which way is up?

[haggeo]

i ordered these fork seals from partsnmore, like i've done before, and the seals i got this time look different than the last set i bought. the last set had an open end which went down and a closed end that went up. these seals are open on both ends so which end goes up/down?

side view


this end has writing on the lip and is open.


this end is also open and the opening is larger, my guess is that this end goes down.


when i press it in the seal does not want to go all the way to the bottom, not sure if this is as far as it needs to go or do i need a bigger hammer? i did lube with ATF.

[KingCustomCycles.com]

Tap it in with a large socket and hammer.  I am voting for the spring side in........

[KRONUS0100]

spring side goes to inside of piece.  tap in with socket and hammer

[haggeo]

both sides have springs if you look at the third picture from the top you can see the spring, it's just out of focus. you can see a spring in every shot actually.

[haggeo]

spring side goes to inside of piece.  tap in with socket and hammer

does it have to be driven all the way down to the bottom? it seems to stop at a certain point no matter how hard i hit it.

[KingCustomCycles.com]

No, as long as the wire clip can be inserted it is far enough.

[CB500_k2]

It is my understanding that the side with printing on it faces out.  I put them on in the reverse way once and they leaked terribly.

[Duke McDukiedook]

Writing facing out as you put it in.

[fmctm1sw]

I remember being in this exact quandary.  I think I ended up doing what dukiedook said..

[ekpent]

When you look at the inside of the seal there will be probabably 2 beveled type grooves,maybe one on a lesser seal.They are the scrapers and the point goes down to "scrape" the oil off the tube and keep it sealed as the tube rises and falls. Are we confused yet 

[TwoTired]

If there are any raised letters/numbers on the seal, they should be readable when installed.

[haggeo]

i put them in "write" side up. never did get them to the bottom of the tube but i hear they don't have to go all the way. i'll find out in a few months when i finally get this thing going.

[CBXJOHN]

I installed the same K&L seals two weeks ago, "write side up", yep there was a gap between the snap ring and seal. No leaks, they work great! I love K&L seals over stock. I bought an '81 CBX puking oil from the forks, cleaned and polished the fork tubes, installed K&L seals and have ridden that bike 40K miles without a drip of fork oil lost. GOOD STUFF!

John