Leaky Fork Seals...

[Bogus Jim]

About a month ago, one of my fork seals started leaking oil pretty bad. I decided to try the old "35mm film" trick I have read about, and it fixed the leak! This is a pretty good video explaining the technique.

I didn't use the Seal Mate tool, I just cut a thin piece of plastic to the same shape and smoothed the cut edges with some sandpaper. But I may order one of these eventually, they're only $5.

[Fletch]

I have found that technique works more times than not

[Hank]

When I got my wr450 both seals were leaking pretty good so I replaced them with aftermarket seals (Moose).  They leaked like pigs immediately, so the next weekend I replaced them again with KYB (OEM) seals, and did the bushings that time.  I also added a set of full length neoprene gators.   All good now but doing it twice was a pain, and possibly entirely unnecessary.

I think the gators are a great idea.  Seals should last about forever with those on.

Lessons learned:

Try the seal saver trick first
If that fails, replace seals with OEM seals (do not try to save 20 bucks on aftermarket)
Replace the bushings while you're in there
Add some fork gators for 20 bucks of cheap insurance