Leaking left fork, even after new seals

[omniron]

My ST1300's left fork has leaked fluid from the day I bought it. At first, I tried to ignore it; rationalizing that it wasn't that much fluid. When I got looking at it close, I realized the fluid was leaking all over the fender and disk brake (uh oh). So I bit the bullet and took it to the dealer to have new seals installed. All was well for about 2 months, but the same fork is starting to leak again. The fork tube looks fine. I can't see a mechanical issue with it.

I've never had this problem with any other bike. What's the problem here? Any insight or suggestions?

 

[Art Franz]

Probably what's happened to your frork, is you mashed a bug on your fork just before you got home, before you had enough suspension travel for the seal assembly to wipe it off. Then, the heat from the radiator/motor dries the remainder of the bug onto your fork real hard; and it's often real sticky as well. Then, the next time your suspension travelled enough for the bug to go past the seal, because it is now hard and stiff, the dust seal wasn't able to wipe it off properly, and some of it came off in the part of the oil seal just where it doesn't need to be. My guess is that this is the main reason most fork seals leak; the seal itself is not damaged, it's just dirty. There's a real easy way to fix it.

I came across this website: www.sealmate.net and the way they explained it made sense to me. Watch all the videos and it really is as easy as they make it out to be. I didn't have this sealmate tool; I used a credit card instead of the sealmate tool, and I pulled a bunch of crud out of there, looked like the stuff you get out from under your fingernails after wrenching on something all day. Works like a charm and if you do it the way I did it, it'll cost nothin but a little time, probably no more than 15 minutes a fork.