Leaky Fork

[MagnaDaddy]

Looks like my fork is leaking.



What's the best approach to fixing this?
Any recommendations on which seals to buy?

Is it OK to keep riding while I wait on parts?

[lragan]

Ken, I have a friend in Oregon whose seals appear to be leaking much worse, in that there is oil running down over the seal when it is parked in the lot.  His is an '84, I believe.  He rides it 22 miles to work every day.  Not that this is necessarily safe, mind you, but he has a number of bikes, including dirt bikes, and it is on his "to do" list, but when I was there in July it had not been done.

My conclusion -- it is not an imminent disaster, just something that needs tending to.

[mainerider]

Ken, I have a friend in Oregon whose seals appear to be leaking much worse, in that there is oil running down over the seal when it is parked in the lot.  His is an '84, I believe.  He rides it 22 miles to work every day.  Not that this is necessarily safe, mind you, but he has a number of bikes, including dirt bikes, and it is on his "to do" list, but when I was there in July it had not been done.

My conclusion -- it is not an imminent disaster, just something that needs tending to.

Lawrence is right; it doesn't look as though they are leaking too badly at this point.  Download the Honda Magna Service Manual, order the needed parts online or at your local Honda shop, and when you have an afternoon grab a few beers, open the manual to guide you and have at it.  The manual really details the job quite clearly.  Good luck.
Joe

[Jerry G Turner]

It doesn't hurt to ride it the biggest danger is if its gets to leaking to badly it will leak on the brake pads. You might try the flim trick pop off the dust cover and run a piece of film around the seal sometimes it will clean any crud out and stop it from leaking if it doesn't they really arn't that hard to replace.

[hootmon]

I actually purchased the seals at a bearing and seal shop and it was much cheaper, so you might see if you have one in town..
I would go ahead and buy new dust seals though and I did purchase those as Honda parts.

You might want to pull up the dust seal and look at the metal retaining clips, mine were rusted and needed to be replaced as well.

Otherwise, if you follow the instructions (Which I did not have at the time) it isn't too bad of a job.. The toughest thing is pushing down on the caps at the top & turning them & making sure you don't cross thread them as you are pushing and turning...

If Money is NOT an issue, you may consider putting in the progressive springs while you have things apart.. I have not done this, but you can ask others on the site their opinions as several have performed this mod...

[Magna 4 Me]

I think there is a write-up on either the Wrench sessions or Tips n Tricks section of the Moot website.  It really isn't hard to do, the hardest part for when we did mine was getting the drain plug out of the bottom of the fork tube.  It is an Allen wrench plug and was quite tight or stuck. 

[Greg Cothern]

I also HIGHLY recommend the progressive springs, esspecially if your there anyway!  Its a Great improvement! 

[TPV65]

I had Virago (hope that not a bad word) that had leaky forks on it for about year before I rebuilt them.  The leak never got any worst than what you are showing.  I am not suggesting that you wait that long just my own procrastination.