New fork oil seal leaking after 1 month - unlucky, or otherwise ??

Off-topic
1

I had a new fork oil seal fitted a month ago (was gonna have a crack at it myself but had second thoughts when I saw the Haynes manual :w00t:).
All was good until last weekend when I noticed the same fork leg was leaking oil again… I spoke to the place that fitted it today and explained the score, they said that fork seals can’t be guaranteed - especially with the state of the roads after the big freeze.

Am I just unlucky, or is there a possibility that an incorrectly fitted seal would cause a leak so soon ? To be fair it wasn’t leaking a couple of weeks ago.

2

I had the same problem after 2 months…

3

depends how they fitted it, properly or not.
look at your stanchions, any scratches etc? have you had a knock on the bike at all?
if fitted properly and stanchions are in good order they should last for yrs.

4

did you have both seals done or just the 1? if you had only 1 done have look at both just see any difference etc, sometimes things are left off etc.

5

a good machanic would not just fit one
you really nead both done at same time ,pluss getting oil level correct,

as the last man said yes your inner fork leg may be damage causing seal to re leak tho the dealer should of notice it,

did you have genuine fork seals or go for the cheaper one,
after market seals are no good,

as for pot holes , talking rubbish

i fit fork seals on my off road and race motox to a high standard
on big jumps and large ruts at speed, they should last a long time if fitted correct as long as the fork are in good working order

6

i had that prob: on an old bike i had, had to change the inner leg as it was pitted.

7

Don’t know if this is applicable to your bike but I had a major problem with a BMW some years ago. Changed the fork seals so often I got to know the torque settings needed off by heart. Dealers were no damned use either, they just suggested I didn’t know what I was doing.

Quite by chance I discovered there was a small breather hole to vent the fork leg which I’d managed to block with Turtle Wax. Somehow the forks were pressurising themselves in use and blowing the oil past the leg seals.

Don’t ask, I couldn’t work that out either. All I know is that clearing the breather holes solved the problem for ther next 50K miles.

8

I don’t know the quality of the seals they used so can’t make a judgement on that.
Since having the new seal fitted I haven’t bashed the front or wheelied it or anything (and didn’t before it was replaced) so not sure if the actual leg is damaged…
Had another read of Haynes this evening, I reckon I can get as far as getting the fork off the bike but the rest of it is probably out of my league (unless I saw someone do it first).

I only got the one fork leg done as the other seemed OK, and the labour price was per leg.

9

I had a similar problem before, but it was only when the seal was replace for the 3rd time that the mechanic noticed that there was a tiny dent in the stanchion, but it was just below the seal when the bike was sitting normally, weird place to get it, but resulted in new seal every 3 months or so.