My Headset seems to be leaking?

[summerdays]

Today I noticed that there seemed to be black stuff leaking out of my headset. See piccy:

I've never seen it do this before - the bike is about 2 years old. What is it? and do I need to do anything about it?

 

[accountantpete]

You have got a bit of water in the system - simply take the headset apart,clean and dry and then re-grease.

Looks like the water got in through the back of the stem so a dab of vaseline in this area might prevent similar trouble.

 

[Ian H]

I'd have thought that water ingress would result in brown rusty leakage.
Have you been spraying WD40 around? It looks like diluted grease to me.

 

[summerdays]

No - the only time I use spray GT85 is onto a cloth which I use to clean the chain - I don't spray near the bike at all - don't want any stray bits ending up on the disk brakes.

I think I was most surprised by its sudden appearance - it was slushy snow then damp drizzle through out today. But no different to the normal weather conditions its often out in.

(May have to go and consult the books about taking it apart).

 

[Tollers]

That's a bike from hell leaking black tears. No seriously....easy job to take it apart and have a look. I wouldnt expect anything brown and rusty from a bike that new. Water could have also got in from between the spacers.

 

[rusky]

I had a headset go rusty on a bike that was only 3 months old.

Stripped it down & found the bearings rusty. Cleaned & repacked it then took it to the LBS to have the complete headset replaced.

 

[topcat1]

summers have look at the bicyletutor vid 33