Saving the Marzocchi from fork guard destruction

[Zrt1200]

When I bought my 05 ec200 it needed fork seals and I noticed that the fork guards were wearing pretty hard on the outer fork tube. If let alone it would not belong before these forks would be junk.

What I came up with is a plastic sleeve to lightly press on to the outer fork tube to keep the fork guard from rubbing onto the actual fork. I machined these up out of UHMW plastic and after one 3 hour ride so far so good.

[Neil E.]

Nice work. Did you make some extras? The rubbing and dirt may eventually thin them out. It's nice to have access to machine tools for projects like this.

Newer forks have a groove with a clip ring that takes the wear. The stock clip rings are aluminum and wear away. I made new ones out of stainless and they definitely last longer.

[Zrt1200]

Originally Posted by Neil E.

Nice work. Did you make some extras? The rubbing and dirt may eventually thin them out. It's nice to have access to machine tools for projects like this.

Newer forks have a groove with a clip ring that takes the wear. The stock clip rings are aluminum and wear away. I made new ones out of stainless and they definitely last longer.

Thanks. No I did not make any spares but being I have a Mill & Lathe in my garage I can make them up any time I need. For the life of me I dont understand why they made them like that. The KYB fork guard idea on YZ's & etc is a better way to go.

[shang]

I actually just purchased SKF mud scrapers for this reason. Around $30 and create another seal against dirt entering the fork seal.

Not as cool as your custom sliders, but for the rest of us it's a good solution.

[Harry]

excellent, I love DIY solutions.

[Zrt1200]

Originally Posted by shang

I actually just purchased SKF mud scrapers for this reason. Around $30 and create another seal against dirt entering the fork seal.

Not as cool as your custom sliders, but for the rest of us it's a good solution.

The SKF Mud scrapers will work but they dont make them for the 45mm forks.

[gasgasman]

Les at LT-Racing used to make some nice teflon fork protectors.
They were split at the rear, so you can install them without removing the forks.