The main fork tubes on the Elefant were in a terrible state. One of them had lost so much of its gold anodising that it actually looked a little like a real Elephant leg.
At first I thought I would replace the whole fork. A bit of research revealed that lots of trail bikes of the same period came with multi-adjustable versions of the 45mm USD Showa forks that would slot right into my yokes. A bit of hunting soon turned up a beautiful set with new bushes and seals (off a Suzuki RMX 250). The match isn’t perfect because the legs are a bit longer overall and the caliper mounts will need machining to take the bottom damping adjuster. I want to take my time with the machine shop stuff and don’t want to wreck the geometry, so I have put the full swap on hold and instead rebuilt my forks using the Suzuki’s tubes and new bushes and seals (one of mine was completely lunched.

Old leg is on the top, of course. Barely a fleck of gold left. Bottom leg could have come of a two-year-old bike. But it it slightly longer.

You can use the fork stanchion as a slide hammer to get your old seals out. But you need one of these to drive the new ones in. Works a treat too.