Leaking Fork

How bad is it to drive with one fork leaking oil? My left fork has a bad seal and I am watching oil pour out when applying the front brakes. The right seal has no leaks. Could this be a potential danger going down the road? The reason I ask is I wasnt planning to rebuild my front forks till my next project time and who knows when that will be. I leave for the service in less than a month and want to get as much riding done as possible. Is it ok to ride with a leaky seal?

If you keep on adding fluid to keep it the same in both forks than it is OK but if you run too low on one fork over the other they will want to work independently and you can potentially snap the lower axle mount on both of them. This is because one will be softer than the other and also the rebound time will be different. Imagine it like trying to do push-ups with a dislocated shoulder or elbow. Sooner or later you will fall on your face when the soar arm gives out. That is not a joke but a realistic analogy. It should not take you more than an hour or hour and a half to do the forks and the seals from Z1E are not expensive.

And there is always the possibility of having fork oil blow onto the front brake. At least it wont squeak as you head for the back of that Buick at warp 2. :blink:

lol i have break fluid already leaking onto the front brake haha. money is tight so im basically trying to ride as is. i can still stop. If it should only take 1-2 hours I will look into ordering some parts then. I just got the engine rebuilt. I wanted to just be done with working on it the rest of the summer but o well. it is 35 years old.

I'll tell the story of my cousin and his 1981 CB900F Honda. The fork seals leaked all over and made a huge mess, but by the grace of god one day the leaking quit. (Out of fork oil). Problem was all resolved at that point.

A set of seals is only $7.20 from Z1E. Just make sure that your problem is not something more severe, like warn out chrome on the fork tubes.

RonKZ650 wrote:

I'll tell the story of my cousin and his 1981 CB900F Honda. The fork seals leaked all over and made a huge mess, but by the grace of god one day the leaking quit. (Out of fork oil). Problem was all resolved at that point.

So are you saying to drain the fork oil out of the good one and just ride? Sounds like thats not good on it? I mean why else would there be fork oil if it didnt do anything.