Stretching the life of rubber.....

Hey guys,

I saw that our own Fitz had written;
" I'm going to do a "mini how-to" on stretching the life of the (relatively new) gasket"

so being the curious sort, I was going to pm him then thought we could all share our methods for anyone to see, and use.

Personally, I've tried just about every chemical developed in the known world.....but I've also learned that often, the best things are completely unrelated to bikes or engines and work wonders.

While several of the silicon products make for good lubes for some types of rubbers, others are not so good. I own a 2 seater hard top convertable car so every couple of months, I partially retract the roof to lube about 40 linear feet of rubber seals....ad the best thing I've found for that is the Formula 2000 ( from Turtle wax)

However, for renewing most any rubber from crank shaft seals to rubber dampers, I've found that White Shepards Hydraulic stop leak will actually swell seals back to original size and STAY there! We had a Kaw H1 triple with a bad crank seal causing a lack of primary compression(in the crank chamber) and we filled it with the fluid and refilled each day for two days, then it no longer needed refilling...it has swelled the seal. The guy has been riding it over two years since then and it still runs great......fill every crank that I don't rebuild with it now and let it sit for a couple of weeks when I build an engine or restore a bike. I'm guessing it would work wonders on rubber gaskets as well.

So Fitz and others, what do you use?

jeff

 

I thought y just washed em and hung em on th line.

 

In this thread -

http://xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/p=3 ... tml#312758

quote gaillarry:

Bringing an 81 Seca 750 back to life. Cleaned the carbs and before putting them back on found the air box boots hard as rock. Found some "Rubber Renue" at the local electrical supply outlet. It's used to soften rubber rollers on industrial equipment. I soaked the boots for about a half hour and they came out just like new. Soft and pliable. Cost about $10 for a bottle enough for a set of boots and the stuff can be re-used. Don't soak them too long or the stuff will eat the boots !!

*unquote*

ATF has an additive that swells rubber and an old trick to help stop a leaking car engine is to put some in the motor oil.
But the same people who tell you that trick tell you to put brake fluid in a slipping transmission, and pepper in a leaky radiator.

Rubber is long chains of hydrocarbons that are bound to each other at occasional links, where the rest of the chain can slide and move. When this ability "dries out", you need a chemical that can drill it's way in and re-lubricate the chains. Pick the wrong chemical and now you have something continuously eating away at the rubber, turning it to goo.

 

I know anything less than a full rebuild is ill-advised, but I'll ask anyway: anybody ever tried a chemical approach to improving the seal of a slightly leaky throttle shaft seal? Are they even rubber? Due to injury and extraordinary medical bills, buying parts for a full rebuild is simply out of the question for 2012.

 

Throttle shaft seals are NOT expensive.

Dave Fox

 

That particular seal can be replaced without ANY removal, just pop the clip, dig it out, replace - other outboard side as well. There's 2 more "somewhat" easy ones if the rack is broken down.

The hard ones require butterfly removal and lean towards a comprehensive clean-up and re-do.

 

Brake fluid can re-vitalize rubber pretty well, I'm sure theres better things out there but ive used it on hardened grips with success.