Weeping fork seal (RVF)

[speedy231278]

A several months ago while my bike was having an MOT, I spotted that the left fork was showing signs of a weeping seal. These are forks that I bought which I was told had recently been rebuilt and reworked for someone around my weight before the previous owner sold them on after very little use. I spoke to the tester and mentioned the light use and he suggested that the seal might just be settling down after the rebuild (although it was not noticable before). Shortly after, it was losing enough to create a drip on the bottom of the fork leg, and at that point I decided to replace the seals and oil in both forks as is recommended even though the right leg had no issue. As best I could tell, the oil seal surfaces were absolutely unmarked, the stanchions have no pits, and as best I could tell there was no damage to the seating surfaces in the upper tube. The seals were lubed with a bit of new oil before putting on the forks, and I also taped over the recess for the bush and smeared oil on the stanchion to assist the new oil and dust seals on. I used a Motion Pro seal driver. They're great, if you're feeling like buying a relatively pricey, not very often used tool then I'd highly recommend one (also have another bike and a few friends with bikes it's the right size for). Everything went back together fine. Seals all the way home, circlips in, etc. Test ride or two showed no issues bar a tiny amount of oil coming out from under the dust seals where everything was lubed prior to reassembly.

Fast forward a few months. Right leg is perfectly clean, just showing the usual microscopic traces of oil on the visible part of the stanchion that you would expect. The left leg, however, is still showing a nice big smear. It's not like it was before I replaced the seals, but even though I wipe it clean every time I use the bike, it's still coming out. I did both forks in the same manner, so I'm rather reluctant to keep thinking it's still just the excess oil that was used to lube the seals making a bid for freedom. I'm sure everything was fine when I inspected the thing, but clearly something is amiss unless coincidentally I used tons more oil to lube the left seals than the right. No, I don't like coincidence either.

I doubt I've done 500 miles since I did the seals. If I pull the fork apart to check it at this stage, would I be OK to reuse the seal if it isn't damaged? If the seal isn't damaged, what am I looking for? The plating on the stanchions is immaculate, and I make sure to clean them often as a neglected my old set a bit, and they became pitted and nasty, which is why I got the new ones before the pits managed to blow a seal (what irony....). Surely only a scored leg would leak past an undamaged seal, or can other factors somehow cause a healthy seal to leak even if neither it nor the stanchion are damaged? The forks are very firm, something I've failed to be able to address, and they barely use half the available travel? Is the idea that the springing is so hard that high loads on the forks could force oil past the seal rather than compress the fork an utterly absurd one? I'm very much not a suspension expert, as you can tell!