I have a 91 Heritage and I notice oil the left fork slider cover. I first notice oil on the primary cover and couldn't figure out how it got there until I looked at the left fork. The bike has 64,000 miles on it. Is this typically for the forks to start leaking? Does this mean a rebuild or seals replacement? Any advice would help.

 

Had the sme thing on my bike took awhile to find out where it was leaking. Changed out the fork seal and that fixed it.

 

My '87 started leaking shortly after I bought it (used in '99). Wasn't the seal - the fork tube had rotated, or more likely wasn't assembled in the tree correctly by the previous owner. Oil was coming from the top of the tube at the fork tube plug (not the top nut). Screwed the tube back into the plug & cinched it down. Been good ever since.

 

With those miles and you not knowing when they were last rebuilt you might want to go ahead and do that. There are some wear parts that need replacing every so often. Say 20k miles or so. If you aren't comfortable doing it yourself you can pull the tubes out and take them to a dealer or Indy to be done.

If you front end has been feeling a little mushy you can go to a higher weight oil. Some people seem to like the SE 15 wt.

Re-install. Check your fall away. And you're done. Unless you want to pull the triple trees and repack the bearings which would be a good idea if they haven't been done yet. You can do that while the forks are at the shop.

 

Does anyone know the fork tube diameter? I have both the owners and shop manual and neither manual has this information. I'm looking online for a fork seal kit and found one on J&P website. It's a 41mm kit but I am not sure of the the tube size.