Using water instead of fork oil?

16 or 17 years ago when I bought my Seca 750. it came with most of a parts bike. It seemed mostly complete other than wheels and an exhaust, although much of it is in boxes. I always thought that someday if I came across a good deal on the missing parts, I might try to rebuild it. But other than that, it's just been sitting around collecting dust. Once in a while I use it for "training" to see how something comes apart without risking the "good" bike.

I've had one of the forks conveniently sitting next to the workbench for a while now, I forget why, but today I wanted to test out a tool I made for removing those pesky fork caps (more on that in the future), and it seemed like a willing test subject. The good news is the tool worked. The bad news is...well...take a look.





The fork looked great from the outside. Cap wasn't rusted or anything. But apparently somebody drained the oil at some point in the past and must have even gone so far as to flush it out with something. There is not a hint of liquid in there. Then from the looks of it, they filled it with water as a lubricant before throwing it in the box.

Have you ever seen the inside of a fork look like this? Holy cow!

The stanchion is completely seized. Can't get it to budge one bit. Rust dust swirled out of the tube when I lifted out the spring. The seals look like somebody tried to remove them and gave up after getting the clips out, but all the rest of the parts are intact, and it's never leaked that I've noticed so I don't know where all the oil would have gone.

Yep, I think that one is toast. Glad I don't need it for anything.

 

That's the upper (chrome) tube, right? If so, once you bust the damper rod loose (penetrating oil or acetone/ATF mix), then you could get a hone and run it thru there to clean it up......might be worth salvaging if the outer chrome is good and it's straight (roll it across a piece of glass and listen for "clicks"; if so, then it's bent --- or do the whole "v-blocks and dial-indicator" procedure that the service manual specifies).