Just put in Lansdowne cartridges a month or so ago, the very first step in my looooooong awaited rebuild (and will take a loooong time.) I preface my comments by saying it is my first time attempting a bike, forks are a new thing to me. However, mine weeped at the bottom on the first shot once buttoned up. Let them sit a couple of days to soak the seals and tightened, still weeped. I questioned the same thing about seal conformability in my mind, however, I decided to give it one more shot. So I drained them, tore them down, and started over, and went to cleaning them up again. I found that the bottom inner surface of the slider is critical to be clean. I had cleaned these sliders a few times, polished them, et. used hot water and soaked them and whatnot. However the last time, I took a bit of a larger diameter welding rod (like for gas welding - think thick coat hanger wire) and sanded it flat on the end, but left the edges sharp. I did the sanding because I did not want to score the bottom of the slider mating surface. I ran that around the bottom surface after soaking in very hot water and got out on both a dried out fillet on the outer edge of the bottom mating surface, a ring of some dried out stuff - kind of yellowed clearish hard stuff if I remember correctly. Now my bike was a total basket case, so whatever was in there on teardown was some dried out stuff - forks were dry as a bone when I tore them down. Reassembled and all looks good, but only on the motorcycle stand and hand pumped up and down a bit, not ridden yet. The lesson I learned is the seemingly hard gaskets on the end do the job if the mating surface on the slider is nice and clean - will find out for sure once I ride it and exercise those forks.
