650L Fork Protection any Suggestions

[racer7x]

I am in the process of reworking a 96 L and need to get ride of the purple fork boots. Looking for any suggestions or experience with skins, boots, shields, whatever? Will be mostly road and some two track riding.

Thanks

[Denn10]

first things first...........wheres your crapper?? OH sorry this isnt "fat bastard" in Austin Powers LOL

WELCOME TO TT BROTHER!!!

i really like the SRC kit as its the best looking in my opinion but the draw back is a little bit pricey. they do make all different colors of fork boots too so thats an option too. www.srcinc.net

[jscompto]

i just took my ugly purple boots off of my 96 xr 650l this weekend. I am not putting anything else on my forks though because i converted the bike strickly to street use only. if you look at any other bike on the street (all jap bikes and harleys, etc) they dont have anything over their forks, so if you are doing mostly street riding and a couple of track days, you probably wont need anything covering your forks. the boots are there to keep the dust out of the seals. let us know what you end up doing!

[Denn10]

NO the boots do alot more than keep dust out and they dont really even do that, there designed to keep mud off and rocks and crap from flinging up on the tubes and nicking them causing seals to get cut and leak. Even with fork boots you need to take them off occasionally and clean under them, they have holes to let the air escape when there compressed so dust, dirt and crud does get in there so you have to pull them up and clean out the inside and pull your dust seals and clean and lube the fork seals like in most all manuals.

[Motosprtman]

I tell ya what I did on my 93 XR650L project, I used the new black ones from a 2005.

[asf]

I use dirtskins

[jscompto]

my bad Denn10 (fat bastard). I didnt think about them being protective of the forks and seals. makes sense though.

[DREWBUSH]

Get a pair of neoprene seal savers. Any brand will work. About 25-30 bucks.

[Denn10]

my bad Denn10 (fat bastard). I didnt think about them being protective of the forks and seals. makes sense though.

Its all good compto, if you have the standard fork boots and you slide them up and clean every now and then and do the standard service to the fork seals it will help longevity of your seals. i havent read it in my L manual but other bikes specifically call for sliding the dust seal out of the way and cleaning and lubing with lithium grease under the dust seal to help keep the oil seal working well. dust/dirt does get in the boots thru those little holes to let air excape when the fork is compressing then it sucks the air right back in when the fork goes out.