Thread: Stuck Reba oil seals - how to remove?

I'm in the process of servicing an '05 Reba fork. It's obvious now that it may have never seen any service before coming into my possession. I'm trying to remove the oil seals to replace with Enduro seals and wipers and these fuckers just do not want to come out. I've tried heat and every pry type tool I can get in there. I know Rock Shox recommends a DH tire lever, which is about the only thing I don't have. Once the local shop opens I'm planning to head over there and grab one. In the meantime, the seals seems like they are REALLY stuck in there and basically all thats happened so far is some bits of brittle rubber have ripped off. Any other tricks to make this work? Or just keep heating and prying?

DH tire lever is definitely the way. Get one of the big long metal ones. Be careful though, when those things pop they will shoot a good 50ft from the fork

Yep, that. If they're really stuck you can hit the tire lever with a mallet

I've always used a motorcycle tire lever for working on forks. I'd assume a DH MTB lever would be similar...
http://www.amazon.com/POSSE-TIRE-LEV.../dp/B004MBPM6U

I ran over to the local shop in search of a DH lever. They didn't have one, but they did inform me that the metal ring that I thought was part of the lowers was actually part of the oil seal. Once I had that info, the seals popped right out with just a screwdriver. I wish I had known all that earlier, but at least they're out. Now back to breathing some life into this thing.

Follow up question...

I finished changing the seals and wipers. That went fine. While I had the fork open, I also pulled out the air spring assembly and removed the all-travel spacer. This is supposed to give the fork 115mm travel. When I put everything back together and pumped up the positive air, it looked like I had about 115mm of stanchion exposed, so I thought all was well. Went to go pump up negative air, but there was already air in the chamber when I connected the shock pump. Fiddled with both pressures a bit and settled on 85 positive / 90 negative. But now there's only about... 90 mm of stanchion exposed. Cycling the fork through its travel feels smooth, but it seems to sink deeper into the travel even with the rebound moved pretty far to to fast end of things.

My initial thought is that the o-rings on the air spring aren't totally doing their job. But would that cause all of this? Or is there something else I need to look at now?