Best Steering bearings and fork seals?

[Noeboo]

After three years of abusing my 05 xb12r on the wonderfully curvy but horribly bumpy roads of the Adirondacks, I am going to have a local shop break down the front end and replace most wearable parts. I will get the fork slides, guides and o-rings from ASB. I mainly need to replace fork seals and dust boots, as well as steering head bearings (one fork seal is leaking and the head bearings are definitely worn).

What I would like to know:

What steering head bearings do you recommend?

What fork seals?

What fork oil?

I need to wait about a week or so to save a little bit of cash to pay for the labor. I want to take that time to gather the best/most durable parts possible. Keep in mind that I ride aggressively on very rough roads. I don't wheelie much but the roads I ride on probably give the same amount of abuse. Please leave your recommendations and reasons why you recommend them. Thank you in advance

 

[pur pony]

i bought everything from ABS, seals and head bearings. Al sells quality Timken bearings.

I used amsoil #2 medium shock therapy oil.

 

[snrusnak]

A lot of people use the all balls steering head bearings and love them. I did also until about 1-2 years later when they went bad. The lower bearing got filled with dirt/sand/water/muck. The seal does not seal nearly as good as the oem bearing. I replaced with standard 1" axle timken bearings from auto zone(thanks to pur pony's advice) and these bearings are identical to the all balls bearings. The didn't come with seals so I reused my old ones. I was in a pinch and had a motorcycle trip in 1 week so had to do this. I will use oem next time(they seal much better)

Although the tapered roller bearing is actually a better bearing, it doesn't seal well, so I won't use them again. I'll go back to oem ball bearings next time. I got about 9k out of my oem bearings and they were still "ok". I got about maybe 3-5k out of the all balls bearings and they went from fine to scary to ride overnight.

Just my experiences...

 

[Negative]

Generally OEM equipment is generally hard to match in terms of fit, reliability, and quality for the most part man ...

That being said, I've bought All Balls fork seals and steering head bearings myself as well ... the seals were still holding up, but the steering head bearings I ended up not having to use since I sold the bike they were for before installing them ...

My 0.02 cents compels me to suggest sticking with OEM unless you're in a bind for money ... Just throwing that out there ...

 

[Noeboo]

Thanks for the advice. I ended up ordering everything the same as pur pony. I should have all parts by Monday and hopefully I can get the work done within a week after that. I'll let you know how it works out.