[hellmet]

It often happens that you perform a DIY repair and you've no idea if it would work at all because it sounds crazy, and then it works and you have no proof of images for it! This happens to be one of those cases.

My motorcycle's front right fork started leaking a week ago and I started dreading the idea of wasting precious 3-4 hours of my weekend time getting it serviced and spending $$ along with it. So, I turned to my friend (Google) and saw if I could do something about it. It returned with two excellent articles about maintaining, and fixing forks without opening them up. If you want, you can also buy a $5 "Sealmate" and store it in your tools kit Watch this video to understand how its done:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEzjdFQp6IM

What they basically say is that leaks in fork seals are often due to dirt lodging in between the seal and the fork and simply cleaning them out would set them back in operation, and that you really don't have to fork out (pun unintended) money to get this fixed.

I used a used piece of hard plastic packaging and cut it up in a way that would let it slide into the gap between the seal and the fork. I then carefully slid it horizontally around the diameter of the fork. A couple of rounds later I pumped the fork by braking hard and wished that would fix it.

After my first ride I noticed a ring of oil on the fork and thought the fix failed, but I went ahead and wiped it out. Fortunately, to my relief there have been no more oil marks on the fork and it looks dry and happy. I ride 42km daily on the bike and so far 100km have passed since the fix without issues. Let's just hope it stays that way for some time to come.