Goofy Footer 548 Posted October 19, 2020 What are common reasons why a fork seal may leak? OEM seals installed professionally in March by the great S101. Approx 800 off road miles on them since. Bike is transported with forks compressed on Joe Hauler. First picture is from 20 miles into the ride then 100 miles later - easy fire road. Is this an Immediate Need fix or could I sneak another ride on it? Is it standard to get both replaced together with fresh fluid during repair? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kato 54 Posted October 19, 2020 Tim what up!! Long time man. Jon and I were just talking about you yesterday. Fwiw Since I started using one of these when strapping it down no more premature fork leaks for me: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Wierdrider 189 Posted October 19, 2020 Try Tom’s trick Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cj54x 57 Posted October 19, 2020 yep tntmo has the trick. I cut a little more hook in the milk jug and it has worked 100% of the time for me. also if I bleed the air form the forks first, it seems like I get a little less oil leakage. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
robertaccio 431 Posted October 19, 2020 Also all the usual and above checks. 1st be sure forks are properly aligned and torqued. Fork alignment is the biggest issue, that floating foot side needs to be free before tightening. I've seen way too many home mechs get that all wrong and bind up the forks putting stress on the bushings and seals. 2nd tie down and use struts or even bleed after snugging down, then open after unloading to balance local/altitude/temp pressure, I constantly piss out and in air with my pro bleeders. 3rd us the simple cheap made for the job tool to do a scrape job. Fact is when everything is mechanically correct without 100s of wear hours, it is rare for OEM quality (SKF etc.) to simply fail without a mechanical cause. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Pokey151 267 Posted October 19, 2020 Symptoms can be dirt in the seal misaligned forks air pressure in the forks and transported with forks compressed usually wont do this unless there are any other issues listed worn bushings a nick in the fork tube Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
luna 14 Posted October 20, 2020 All excellent descriptions above. Highly recommend, after next ride and it doesn't leak, pull one that leaked and replace fork oil, it's contaminated. Add either MFG suggested oil height, call your suspension shop see what they put in, or pull other fork that didn't leak measure fork oil height and match both fork legs to non leaked fork. If you do the latter, might as well put fresh oil in both forks, fork oil is cheap. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Goofy Footer 548 Posted March 20, 2021 Closing the loop on this - George dialed me in with new seals and fluid in a full fork service. He said the seals were shot. They work good as new now Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
KTMrad 543 Posted March 20, 2021 Goofy, you blew a seal again?😆 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
