How can we extend the life of our forks? The most basic is that the usual maintenance should be in place.
First, the fork should be clean! Each trip back to wipe clean with a clean oil-free rag. Preferably a towel that does not shed lint, dipped in water or soapy water. To try to keep the water from flowing into the fork inside, I usually turn the car upside down! To avoid damage to the oil seal and dust seal after the water at the dust seal, I wipe it with a wet towel and then wipe it with a dry one. This quickly dried up. In addition, we should pay special attention to the inner tube and dust seal at the clean, dust cleaned up to reduce the wear and tear of the inner tube and dust seal, otherwise the longer the dust accumulates too much inner tube will be the brighter. It wore off the Teflon coating, exposed the inside of the aluminum too, and quickly dried up.
Second, it is recommended to buy a fork dust cover. Shopping sites offer such things a lot and are not expensive. We clean the fork after the dust cover is fixed, so it will be good to protect your fork’s inner tube. Both to avoid hard objects hitting the inner tube and the intrusion of dust, reducing your chances of cleaning dust.
Third, because our fork is working with reciprocating friction movement, the inner tube rubs the dust seal oil seal. Over time, it will be worn! Forks will appear to leak oil and dry. Wait until this time, the maintenance is too late! So how do we use grease? It’s simple! We first clean the inner tube of the fork and the dust seal! Then in the dust seal and the junction of the inner tube touch a little lubricant, evenly coated with a circle, about two centimeters high! Do not wipe too much, and then compress the fork several times, and finally, your fork dust cover set on it (wipe some on each ride, and then clean up with a clean rag when you get back, no dust on the wipe) you must pay attention to the dust cover plus grease. Our fork in the car store to buy is generally a warranty of about a year, and normal riding words fork generally within a year will rarely have problems. When the issue arises, your fork should also be over the warranty period! Then you should pay for the maintenance yourself! Maintenance includes fork internal damping, oil cleaning, and replacement of the dust and oil seal. The general store cannot do this kind of maintenance, and you have to send it to the agent or professional authorized maintenance points. For normal riding flat roads, our fork once a year and a half maintenance on the line, change the oil, and clean the dust seal on it! So we usually do the above, most basic maintenance is enough to extend the life of your fork.
Do not: prohibit the application of some machine oil, chain lubricant! These things will damage the oil seal of your fork dust seal.