'01 250 EC Fork Questions, What the hell??

[OhioPT]

Hi everyone, my first post here. Anyways, I found a used '01 250 EC near me, and went over to check it out today. Bike looks pretty well taken care of, and seemed to ride pretty well (the seller let me test ride it). However, something's up with the front forks on this thing. For starters, I didn't see any preload adjusters on top of the forks, just the caps (like on a bike with no preload adjustment). Am I looking in the right place for the preload knobs, or is there something missing here?? Speaking of missing, there are no fork boots, just a couple cheap homemade seal protectors. How much are these to replace? And finally, the worst thing is that the when pressing down on the handlebars to compress the forks, they "stick" sometimes, and don't sound like they are performing correctly (there is little-to-no air compression noise).

If it helps, these forks had the compression adjuster on the left hand side fork tube, and the rebound on the right side (both adjusters were on the top of the forks). Also, they ARE NOT USD forks (the pictures on BikePics appear to show USD forks, so maybe the forks were swapped out for something else, but who knows why). The seller said he did have the fork seals replaced within the past 12-18 months, but I'm not sure that the place that did them knew what the hell they were doing (due to all the issues I mentioned above). Thanks for any advice you can offer.

Mark

[GMP]

If its an '01 it came stock with WP43 USD forks. Sounds like that bike has a set of old Marzocchi Magnum 45 conventionals. That would also mean different T clamps, axel, etc. Take and post some pics.

There are a a number of excellent used GGs available at great prices, keep looking if your not sure.

[JoshP]

I have a 97 and 98 both with Marzocchi 45mm conventional forks which are a very nice fork but the oil gets contaminated very easily. I have found that I need to change the fork oil at least every 2 months to keep the forks working nicely otherwise they ride like crap. As far as the stick it could be a multitude of things but like Glen state there are a ton of used ones around with good prices so don't jump on it if you don't like it. The Marzocchi conventional is a very easy fork to work on and you can change out oil / seals in under an hour but the sticking issue would concern me a little. I guess it depends on how much the bike is. Good luck.