fork seal brand question

RonKZ650 wrote:

I hope Z1 sells original Kawasaki seals, otherwise you're going to get very experienced at the job quickly. Last aftermarket seals I used didn't last a week.

We have almost ZERO problems with aftermarket seals. I'm running the same set of aftermarket seals in my Z1 for 5 years. The key is installing them carefully.

Ron, you seem to be of the opinion OEM parts are always the best out there. In some areas the OEM parts are better, however in most areas the OEM and aftermarket parts have no appreciable difference - often because the VERY same parts in a different bag - in these cases buying OEM is a total waste of money. In other cases the aftermarket parts are far better then OEM.

Bear in mind many of the OEM parts are truly NOS - new, old stock - they have been sitting around for as long as 15-20 years. We've bought genuine airbox hoses that come in already hard from sitting on a shelf for years, rusty cam bearings, mismanufactured pistons (one that looked fine except there were no oil holes in the piston).

As far as OEM parts. Does anyone think that parts such as gaskets, seals, bulbs and a whole crapper load of other parts aren't outsourced. I know, they are made to OEM specifications for that manufacturer. But the same suppliers sell them to other sources too, and it's that same quality. I've been in enough manufacturing jobs to see that.
Ride safe

OK, that was post number 1000, :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

awesome, I'm part of history.
For all eternity, My fork seal topic will be known as the one that Milkman posted his 1000th post in:laugh:

The Milkman wrote:

As far as OEM parts. Does anyone think that parts such as gaskets, seals, bulbs and a whole crapper load of other parts aren't outsourced. I know, they are made to OEM specifications for that manufacturer. But the same suppliers sell them to other sources too, and it's that same quality. I've been in enough manufacturing jobs to see that.
Ride safe

Very true..

When you inspect many of the 'genuine' OEM parts the makers marks are on them.

ART, DID, EK, Mikuni, NGK, ND, Tokico, ARJ and many more.

There are different grades within aftermarket parts. Turn signals are a good example. You'll see brands like 'Trick' being sold alongside 'K&S' - the quality difference is massive. The K&S brand are far superior.

Even with the OEM parts the quality varies over the years. The original brake and clutch levers on the Z1 had brass inserts in the pivot point. The same part number being sold today does not. Aluminum master cylinder caps for the Z1 used to be aluminum, but are now plastic, even thought the part number is the same.

GOOD THREAD!! I ordered a K&L vacuum petcock kit from ebay, after rebuild gas still dribbled into carbs with engine off. After further inspection with reading glasses I found that metal part on diaphram was about 1/16" to 1/32" shorter than original which did not allow it to reach far enough to fully seat. Made me wonder about some aftermarket parts. Very nice people, they (Sirius Consolidated Inc) don't know what the problem is but are sending me another diaphram. Hope it works better.

P.S. I have 1057 posts, never noticed hitting the 1000 mark! Bummer... :dry: