Anyone else ever managed to abuse a fork like this? Bought of the classifieds in good condition 3 years ago, fitted to bike then left. Been meaning to service for a while, bit late now!

I know more than a few people who have done worse than that.

I was surprised at how bad the lowers are, thought I’d just got a bit of wear from dirty seals.
First time servicing a fork, will learn alot then do my other bike before this stage 🙂

Bit of nail varnish will sort that out

Does it matter what happens below the seals?

Yes
The stanchions slide on the bushes inside the lowers- not the seals

What was it?

Not sure nail varnish will be necessary, no deep scrapes/holes to fill. Managed to clean it all up fairly smooth & will see how it is when rebuilt.
Lowers where full of brown, oily, watery stuff. Not sure what caused the black tarnishing.

What was it?

Its a 07 Reba fork – I’mnot talking about them in past tense yet!

Probably be alright with some autosol and elbow grease.

The oily watery stuff will be just that! Residual degraded fork oil and water that has made it past the seals over the years.

My recon just stopped compressing last February. Turns out all the lubrication in the lowers has degraded and gone. No lubrication for the seals accelerates wear, which in turn, accelerates oil degradation as more water gets in. A positive feedback loop of expensive damage!

Anyhow, I lost some of the stanchion coating, and the lowers needed a good cleanup, but now I do a lower leg service about every eight months (or at least I plan to) and the forks work fine.

I’ve got some 07/08 rebas with a crack in the disc mount, doing nowt in the shed. Other than the crack they are in pretty good nick. Yours for postage and the price of a bottle of wine if you fancy them op. Email in profile.