scratched fork + shock stanchions

[hardboiled]

doh! fell on some sharp pointy rocks last weekend and put fairly deep scratches in my fork stanchion and in the shock body of my rear shock. both are air shocks. I've been riding since then without any noticeable effect except that my rear shock leaks a little oil. no noticeable air loss though. on the fork, there hasn't been any oil or anything else on the scratched stanchion.

I've heard of a home-remedy of applying nail polish to the scratch and sanding with fine grain wet sandpaper. my LBS suggested pretty strongly that I not do that and instead send them back to the manufacturers for replacement parts and service but I figure that's going to set me back a couple hundo.

so I'm basically looking for second opinions. should I just go for the nail polish fix or will I do more damage to the fork and/or shock by not replacing the damaged parts? any other recommended fixes?

[flowtron]

Try the nail polish move on your fork.

I think its only a matter of time before the rear goes. The pressures in the rear shock are much higher and lower volume. You could try the nail polish back there, but I've never heard of that actually working (or even tried, now that I think about it).
You're probably going to have to send that back.

[flyby]

sand down the burrs, fill in as necessary, and if possible rotate the stanchions every coupla rides.

[Yukonrider]

It will just wear the seals faster, which will eventually result in oil loss. Have never really heard of or used the nail polish thing, but it makes sense, fill in hole, make smooth, basically like ptexing a ski. Cant really hurt anything could it?

Id do it

[Yukonrider]

Just thought, if its deeper, maybe substitute something else (JB weld?) instead of the nail polish? stay in longer, better?

[hardboiled]

cool, thanks for the replies. I'll give it a go.

[jrel]

I've used Epoxy Steel with great result.
http://www.epoxy.com.pk/steel.htm

You do need to do a fair amount of polishing though.

Good luck

[Natedogg]

Did you do a search? This has been discussed at length on many sites. Check here and on Ridemonkey. The short of it is don't send the fork back--do it yourself. If it's deep, use JB Weld.