Hey guys. I know this has been asked before but here it goes again. I'm gonna swap out my lower sliders on my '10 SB. The dealer quoted me 1 hour for labor. Does that seem about right? If thats about all it will take I may just have them do it and save me a possible headache.

 

It'll take you a little longer to do but an easy job to do.

 

I know it would take me alot longer than an hour to swap in some chrome sliders. I like to do as much of the work on my bike as possible, but for an hour total of labor, thats not to bad.

 

Right! If it's only an hour. I just don't want have them do it and then tell me it took 4 hours.

 

i did my lowers and tripple trees and all after i had the powder work done. it took me about 10 mins to get the front tire and brake caliper unbolted and then about 5 mins to drain the fluid out. then about 15 mins to pop the dust caps and seals off then the sliders just pop off the tubes after that. took me about 45-60 mins to put it all back together torque to spec and add the new fork oil into the tubes. it is a pretty simple job just take your time and youll do fine. if you got the service manual your golden its step by step easy stuff. the only thing really all that speacial you will need is a seal driver

 

Usually when they quote time like that it is a flat rate from the book, so that is what you will be charged for unless there is a problem.

 

Really? I remember referencing the SM the first time I took my front end apart and found that page to be completely and utterly useless.

As far as a seal driver....the OP can buy a 2 foot x 2" i.d. (inside diameter) length of sched 40 pvc from any of the home stores. It's a couple of bucks. Just sand down the first 1/2" of the edge or it will hang up in the lower once you drive the seal.

Also, you'll need a 12mm allen socket. I got mine from NAPA. It's just the right length. If you look for a thread that JRK posted a while back about the size of that bolt, you'll find the part number for the item I'm referencing.

 

It took me under 2 hours to do it my first time so a hour sounds about right.

A buddy just had new seals put in his front end on his V-Rod and the dealer charged him for 1 1/2 hours labor.

 

If you can hold them to that hour and no more, I'd let them do it. Especially if you don't have the tools you need and would have to go out and buy them. I swapped mine myself and have had to tear one down and put it back together again because of a busted oil seal. And I'm still pretty sure I couldn't do it all again, including removing the front wheel and putting it all back together again, making sure everything is torque'd right, f'ing around with getting seals to seat properly, etc. in an hour.

On the other hand, if you have the tools and the time, that would be an hour labor saved to do something else with. But don't plan on doing it yourself in an hour.

There are several threads floating around out there on how to do it yourself without actually removing the forks from the trees. SC_Longhair and Bberck have threads I used and they also helped me via pm as I was going through it.

But you need tools that not everyone has laying around that will probably cost you what that hour of labor will cost you if you have to go out and get them. You need a torque wrench to do just about anything to your bike. For this task, specifically, you need a 12mm allen wrench for the bolts that hold the sliders on and a 35mm (I think) socket to remove the fork caps (be careful doing that by the way) to refill the tubes with oil. The entire front end is metric, so if you don't have metric sockets and hex bits, you'd have to go buy those too. Personally, I like buying tools as I need them and do what work I can on my own so I'll have them for next time. Saves in the long run.

 

A buddy of mine just got a bike at the same dealer, he gave them my name as a refferal, so they gave me a $100 gift card. So it's like free labor if it's only an hour.