fork seals

[catbed]

how do i know if my fork seals are shot? there is oil on the top of them. bad, im guessing?

[hampshirehog]

As long as you've got some oil in the foks legs....

Prise off the dust caps and wipe everything with a dry rag - remove any oil and water that might be sitting on top of the seals and dry the stantions. Then bounce your forks a few times; if you end up with an oil ring on your stantions give them another wipe and repeat. Do 2 or 3 times (it might just be you couldn't clean off properly) and if you keep getting an oil ring on your stantions you'll need to change your seals.

[Mark M]

As long as you've got some oil in the foks legs....

Prise off the dust caps and wipe everything with a dry rag - remove any oil and water that might be sitting on top of the seals and dry the stantions. Then bounce your forks a few times; if you end up with an oil ring on your stantions give them another wipe and repeat. Do 2 or 3 times (it might just be you couldn't clean off properly) and if you keep getting an oil ring on your stantions you'll need to change your seals.

This is a good test. Even better is to use a contact cleaner or brake cleaner to clean off the seal area, then test. You can also use a business card to scrape the gunk off the lip and even slightly under the lip to be sure it's not just a bit of dirt fouling the seal.

Mark

[spyug]

All good advice. Once you clean things up and bounce the front end a few times if any oil shows, the seals are shot. You may be able to ride ok for quite awhile but one good bump and the seals could let go with disasterous results. With any oil on the fork leg the bike would not pass a safety cert.. Leaking fork oil can also contaminate the brake pads, also with potential disasterous results.

Fork seals can be good for a long time or can be bad from the get go but whenever there is oil on the leg consider them bad and change them out.

Good luck with that.

Cheers,
Soyug.