Leak in front fork

Alright lads when I took me scooter for it's not last week the fella said it had a slight leak in the front shocky fork. Does anyone know if it's a big fix or can I leave this a while? Is it rideable also? My scooter is a chinese jonway adventure 125cc

 

Mot that should of said lol

 

It depends, some MOT testers will pick up on 'misting' which is nothing to worry about. If it is actual oil that is showing, you'll get away with it for a while but it depends how you feel about riding a defective vehicle. The stuff can have a nasty habit of running down fork sliders towards the brakes too ...

Fix wise, depends on the route you take, it is possible for a home mechanic to deal with fork seals, but is the chrome OK? If the chrome is damaged paying for and fitting new fork seals is a waste of time and money as they will not last long. It then gets to be an expensive process to get it re-chromed so in all it is probably cheaper to just look for a replacement set of forks and bolt them on.

 

Here is a picture of one that needs replacing, you can see the oil on the chrome and muck building up at the end of travel and on the dust seal. If yours looks anything like that, time to get it fixed.

 

Thanks for the reply gem I will have a look at me bike and get back to you, not sure how bad it is. Feels ok when riding like I wouldn't of known about it if it wasn't for the mot fella tbh. But he didn't seem to concerned ;-)

 

yeah it looks like that unfortunatly, a little worse if im being honest. so would you say its not rideable if it in that state?

 

Rideable, but get it sorted sooner rather than later.

 

thats a good answer i can sort it after crimbo haha. any of your handy vids to show me what to do please gem? oh the chrome is in very good conditon after ive just cleaned it so thats a good sign lol

 

Vid here from youtube, they are all kind of similar. Worse bit really is getting in the new seal without damaging them.



Be sure with the chrome though, you are looking for vertical scratches in the chrome where it moves in the seal, even small scratches is all it takes to wreck a new seal.

I see in the video comments people are asking how much oil for the rebuild, it's model specific so you'll need to find out how much and correct specification for your bike.

 

A much more involved vid here, this is pretty much a professional instructional video and quite long (35 minutes) but best I've seen.