How to tell if I've blown a fork seal??

I'm wondering if I've blown a fork seal. It looked like the was some seepage on the back side of a fork leg. When I compress the forks, they make a sort of dry, scraping sound. But, they may have made that soudn when I got the bike. I just don't know.

Can anyone tell me how to tell for sure? Thanks!!

Yeti, do you have any pics? You may just have something (grit, etc.) stuck under the seal and making it leak. In that case you can get some 35 mm film negative or buy a seal cleaning tool (very cheap) to clean that stuff out. The metal grinding sound is a concern and could be worn out bushings. Hard to say without hearing it.

Yeti, You left yourself wide open on that one!

Doug,
How long have you been waiting to use that one?

Yeti wrote:I'm wondering if I've blown a fork seal. It looked like the was some seepage on the back side of a fork leg. When I compress the forks, they make a sort of dry, scraping sound. But, they may have made that soudn when I got the bike. I just don't know.

Can anyone tell me how to tell for sure? Thanks!!

Mine looked like it was leaking after performing a full blown fork maintenance. Turned out the oil that I saw seeping was from being trapped under the fork boot. If you haven't recently flushed your fork oil it sounds like the best thing to do is take it apart...Looks like a tech day is in store.
http://www.xr650r.us/issues/9.shtml

Doug wrote:Yeti, You left yourself wide open on that one!

Ok. I laughed at that one!!