Forks - Is this part required?

Hi, Rebuilding my forks due to the fact that I can not get them to work properly without turning the bike upside down and filling the forks with oil from the drain plug.....ANYWAY I am taking my forks apart and notice they are missing ( 06-7520 Gasket, Forkseal, Paper ) Do you think this is important to have? I doubt it has anything to do with my problem but still....anyone wanna give insight on the gaskets role and why the PO would remove/neglect it?

Thanks,
Dave

Good question. never thought about it much. I would say maybe it is there to prevent fork oil migration from the OD of the seal. Or, from the oil under pressure to expand the seal too much causing too much friction on the tubes. But, then who knows----I use non-Norton fork seals and the paper gasket isn't used at all.
I'm sure now there will be other replies as to the purpose for it---will be interesting to hear them.

I don't know their purpose, but I did forget to order them once when I had the front end apart and needed it back together to get to/from school. I put it together and nothing seemed changed so I went on with it - always intending to change it "when I had time" - that turned out to be about 8K miles later. Maybe I was lucky, no idea, but I never saw any adverse effects (this was on a bike with the short fork seals, not the long gaiters - if that makes any difference to why/what they do).

I believe this acts as a glide between the seal and the collar to prevent galling during assembly.

hm, ok. sounds good enough for me Peter thanks

I never bother using them when rebuilding Norton forks, and have suffered no problems ... and I use OEM fork seals. However, Peter (pvisseriii) is probably right. I have much respect for his Norton knowledge/know-how. Cheers. 8)