They could be stripped and black oxide done. It's the only thing that will stand up to the wear in the bushings.
Ron

 

You can send them off to have a black nitrate coating placed on them. Dirt bike suspension companies have been doing this for years. The nitrate coating is super slick which prevents stiction from the tube to the seals. It is not cheap at all though.

 

Just got my fork tubes powder coated. Im not so sure it was the right thing to do. I havent gotten them together yet or put the oil in, but when i set them up to install the new seals the tubes seemed a little tight. Tried to knock it down a bit with some steel wool. Not sure its gonna work how i wanted. Starting to look for a new set of tubes right now jsut in case this dont work. Im hoping that maybe once the oil is in there itll slide a little better.

 

It wasn't. Unfortunately, you just learned a hard(and expensive) lesson.

 

your talking about Nitride coating, and if your looking for cheap, that aint it, you would be looking at around $500.00 to do the tubes not including taking them apart, and seals/oil. You should NOT powdercoat or paint your fork tubes.