Hitchcocks Forum

Hmmm my bike has decided to spring another leak now, I noticed some kind of muck sprayed on my new exhaust header and couldnt understand where it was coming from as the roads were dry. Turns out there was a leak of grey oil/grease running down my right fork, I wiped away most of it but below is a pic of what I missed. The annoying thing the guy who sold me the bike said the forks had been rebuilt with nee seals from our hosts. I am not used to leaking forks and have never had a problem with them before on any bike. Is the bike safe to ride with a leak like that will it cause a tank slapper and put me in the bushes.

I wiped it all away and tried pumping the forks and putting all my weight on the handlebars and can't see any more coming out. Fork operation is apparantly unaffected. Perhaps this is a transient failure caused my heavy trauma due to the presence of pot holes and uneven road surface or perhaps an over filled oil state. Will keep an eye on it in the first instance.

Mine occasionally do that too. There are nobushes in the forks, they sit on two oil seals, widely spaces. I think they must leak a bit if a lot of lateral force is put on them and its why i don't attempt to pull the forks hard up against the sides for the front hub nuts when i fit the front wheel, just let them find their own spacing.



Not entirly unusual to put some sort fo lubricant up under the fork shrouds as a corrosion inhibitor too, which in the recent hot weather, may be more liquid than usual.

Cheers stinkwheel it doesnt really seem like oil more like grease so what you say about grease being up there and becoming runny in the heat makes sense. I will just keep an eye on it for now.

Yes,worth a try: slacken both cap nuts on axle each side, bounce the bike around as much as you can, engage front brake and work the suspension as much as you can as well, then tighten them up again; I found this centralized alignment and stopped minor leak from seals.

might be some sort of anti-scuffing paste the fork re-builder used ??