Arkansas Canoe Club Forums

After 6 or 7 years one of my gaskets finally gave out on my dry suit. Glad it wasn't a really cold float. Hoping someone can give me recs on where to get these repaired. Ideal would be to find someone good in LR or Conway that could replace them locally. Second best would be to find a reputable online place to ship suit to get repaired.

Thanks! -Brad

This topic comes up a lot.

There may be a local area place to do this repair but I have not found it. OOO may do seals down in Hot Springs and you should contact them and talk.

I recommend a third option to you - replace the seals your self.

My Kokotat gore tex latex finally got soft and I decided to replace it. Living here in the Tulsa OK area, I have to send my suit out any way. Doing it myself saves time and some money.

The two best places I know for replacement is Kokotat factory and Kayak Academy (where I purchased my dry suit).

Either will replace seals for you but there is shipping and the price is pretty steep.

I swapped some emails with Kayak Academy and ended up buying their seal replacement kit and their heavy duty seals.

I had replaced seals myself many years ago back when the neck seals were on a conical base. And, it was not fun.

The new kokotat neck seal is flat and with the Kayak Academy tool kit makes seal replacement something most of us can do in a weekend. The new seals I got from Kayak Academy do look a lot thicker than the stock Kokotats.

When you send in your dry suit you have to wash it. I decided to wash and re apply the DWR treatment myself.

what I did was buy the recommended wash shampoo and waterproofing treatment. Did the wash and treatment procedure first as this let me do the drying (which is the key to a good treatment) then cut off and replaced the seals.

Bottom line here is google kayak academy, go to their web site or call them and get the proper seals for your garment and the replacement tool kit. They will send you complete instructions.

Given reasonable care most of us can get many years of use out of kokotat dry suits and dry tops. Take a deep breath, replace the seals yourself with the kit. This will cost you some where near the price of sending your gear in for factory or Kayak Academy replacement. Then next time seals wear out, you are only out the cost of the seals.

Here is a gasket source I found.

http://forums.arkansascanoeclub.com/vie ... 26#p164926" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Washed my suit and to Kayak Academy it goes. Thanks for the responses.

Northwest River Supply did a good job on dry top gaskets for me.