Bicycle Mechanics - getting seal's out of my MX comp ETA's

I've recently got back into MTB'ing last time I had a MTB was Raliegh Activator era and decent suspension was only on more exotic bike's.
I bought a GT aggressor recently to start MTB again I've been upgrading it and have replaced the RS JUDY TT forks with MX comp ETA 03.
I love the forks they are great but the manual is not!
living in the U.K the weather has got preety crappy and my forks get covered in mud regularly, but trying to priz off the seals to clean them is hard, I used a small flat tip screwdriver with no sharp edge's to get in between the seals and the slider to pry them out but I ended up tearing the rubber slightly, and no matter how hard I tried I could not get any force on it without damaging the rubber ( I hope the small tear is not serious?!) I then tried to get in between the seal and the stanchion to remove it that way! only I did not notice under the 1st lip there is another one!! and I may of damaged that but I can not tell if I have.
I'm one of these really fussy obssesive type's and I hate the feeling that my seals may be damaged so I am now thinking of replacing them.
So my question is this:- is there an easier way to remove the seal? do you have to be quite forcfull on them? as I'm worried I'll damage them more.
And is it easy to replace the seal's my self? I am a competent mechanic but I have never serviced or taken apart forks before, and I cannot find any detailed dis-assembly instruction on the web. Will I need any instruction? or if I'm carefull is it easy enough to dis-assemble myself and put new seals on??

Or should I just not bother at all? and just keep the seals greased and in time get an authorised dealer to service them? I bought the Marzocchi's for there reliability and the lack of maintenance. All I want to be able to do is remove the seals now and again and clean em!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Evo

I've recently got back into MTB'ing last time I had a MTB was Raliegh Activator era and decent suspension was only on more exotic bike's.
I bought a GT aggressor recently to start MTB again I've been upgrading it and have replaced the RS JUDY TT forks with MX comp ETA 03.
I love the forks they are great but the manual is not!
living in the U.K the weather has got preety crappy and my forks get covered in mud regularly, but trying to priz off the seals to clean them is hard, I used a small flat tip screwdriver with no sharp edge's to get in between the seals and the slider to pry them out but I ended up tearing the rubber slightly, and no matter how hard I tried I could not get any force on it without damaging the rubber ( I hope the small tear is not serious?!) I then tried to get in between the seal and the stanchion to remove it that way! only I did not notice under the 1st lip there is another one!! and I may of damaged that but I can not tell if I have.
I'm one of these really fussy obssesive type's and I hate the feeling that my seals may be damaged so I am now thinking of replacing them.
So my question is this:- is there an easier way to remove the seal? do you have to be quite forcfull on them? as I'm worried I'll damage them more.
And is it easy to replace the seal's my self? I am a competent mechanic but I have never serviced or taken apart forks before, and I cannot find any detailed dis-assembly instruction on the web. Will I need any instruction? or if I'm carefull is it easy enough to dis-assemble myself and put new seals on??

Or should I just not bother at all? and just keep the seals greased and in time get an authorised dealer to service them? I bought the Marzocchi's for there reliability and the lack of maintenance. All I want to be able to do is remove the seals now and again and clean em!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Evo

http://www.marzocchi.com/system/2110/2003Bomber_en.pdf

As you will find starting on page 22, there are some decent instructions on maintaining your susp fork... as for cleaning the seals it appears that marzocchi suggests you clean them after every ride. I have never serviced one of these susp forks, so other than refering to the tech manual I can't help you :(

ya its stupid of Marzocchi to tell people to lift the seals cause there no way- there tooooo tite, instead just apply some triflow teflon lube ( or fork oil from moto shop)around the stanchions around 1" above the seals before every ride, compress the fork will draw the dirt inside the dust seal up / sounds like you damaged your outer dust seals not your main seal under them , so unless alot off oil lkeaks out the seals you are good- you may get extra dirt past your dust seals if you nacked em bad and then inturn down to the main seal and possibly inside making the oil dirty after awhile that a oil change can fix. Marz forks are easy to learn , take off top caps( let air out first in case) drain old oil, unscrew nuts on bottom and they come right apart, reassemble add 7.5 fork oil , measure your oil height with spring out , stanchions all the way down, cartridge rods down to if you have em.pump cartridges , search the internet for complete instructions or have a shop, a friend do it real world cycling.com has cheap seal kits

Sounds like you tried to pull the seals with out pulling apart the fork. That is pretty hard to do. As has been mentioned if you wipe down the stanchions and oil them you should have no problems.
Even when overhauling a fork I don't pull the seals unless I plan on replacing them, with a little patience you can clean it pretty good and most of them are so tight you damage them getting them out anyway(as you have seen).

Thank you for your replies they were very helpfull. I never got an instruction manual with the forks, but Marzocchi's web site has manuals for all its forks you can download as VegasCyclist pointed out thanks.
But thats is what I had a problem with as in the manual it shows the seal being prized out of the sliders with a flat head screw driver, but in Practice this is very hard as Buzz pointed out, it seems that I only damaged the outer rubber and it has thankfully not affected the seal itself.
I have done as sugested and bought some suspension lube to smear around the stanchions and using a blunt soft tipped tool a little under the seal itself then pump up and down a few time's and remove the excess.
I got the Marzocchi's as they were supposed to be pretty much maintenance free. But time will tell, now I wil only remove the seal's when it's time to replace them, after a year or so of riding.
Again thanks for the help.

Regards Marc