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Guest sthomson1

Fork oil check / replace

23 posts in this topic

Ive just done my front forks.

Filled them up with 445ml oil (165mm from top of fork)

To save people stripping down the forks, the correct oil amount is 130mm from the top, with spring in.

This saves you removing the fork cap (from damper) and spring. (less mess)

++ also, slacken the 17mm top cap before removing the forks (saves alot of hassle when their off) ++

forks.jpg

Edited by sthomson1
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Cheers Steve,useful info.

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Nice one Steven :niceone:

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Thanks steve - I'm going to do mine this weekend and the tip for pulling the 17mm top cap will make it a lot easier (already had them off but had to put them back on for the insurance inspection! Gits!).

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Another tip for forks.... If you are going to strip them down to replace the seals undo the damper rod bolt first before undoing the top cap, then on re assembly carefully screw the bolt in a little then do the top cap up followed by the damper bolt. This saves having to make or borrow a holding tool

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Another good tip! Thanks Chris.

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Ok, i need some help, need to change the fork oil but i don't want to take apart the fork legs.

Can the 17mm top cap be removed and the forks turned upside down to empty the oil, then just re-filled with new oil and screw the cap back on? :unsure:

Sorry if it sounds thick but it seems a logical way to do it. :)

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Yes Mark you can do that, remember you will still have some old oil left behind though. I`ve used brake cleaner to remove whats left of the old oil by swilling it around after dropping the oil then pouring it out and it had no negative effect on the seals.

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you will also need to pump the fork leg quite a number of times to get all the oil out. You know all the oils out when theres no resistence to the fork leg being pulled to and fro.

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When I did my X11 forks a couple of years ago I put 500ml in each leg , EEEEEEkkkkkk you all say what a :knob: , Well it reduces the air gap thus having less air to compress makes for a stiffer front end , It's the same as having air suspension with the air pressure increased. It depends how you ride but I do like it stiff up front !!!

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Ok, thanks loads lads. That's cleared things up for me now.

Cheers. ;)

Now i need some oil. I know you can get 10w, 15w, 20w ect ect... I think in mine now it's really heavy oil cos the front end is super stiff and not a nice ride. The bike skips all over the road and just will not soak up any bumps at all. Perfect on new smooth road surfaces but crap anywhere else.

Think i'm gonna go for the standard 10w, can anyone reccomend a particular brand? Castrol, Motul ect? :)

Edited by raeman
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Think i'm gonna go for the standard 10w, can anyone reccomend a particular brand? Castrol, Motul ect? :)

Why dont you buy Honda oil for that :)

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as i see, there's no drain plug for the fork (honda is really cheap! .... ) , so why not drill a hole on the botton of each fork element then tap it and put a small screw with oring?

my old zx10 had drain plug, it was very easy to replace oil without to disassemble the fork.

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Does anyone knows what is original fork oil viscosity? 10W?

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Yep, service card (what i have at my work) says Honda Ultra 10W and amount 446cm3 and distance from the top 164mm

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Is it worth to pour heavier oit, e.g. 15W? Lot of users complain that front suspension is too soft. I'm riding X11 just for 2 months and for me current stiffness is OK. But I have no idea if oil isn't old (and havier due to age) or if previous user didn't replace the oil by heavier one than 10W.

What's your opinions?

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Is it worth to pour heavier oit, e.g. 15W? Lot of users complain that front suspension is too soft. I'm riding X11 just for 2 months and for me current stiffness is OK. But I have no idea if oil isn't old (and havier due to age) or if previous user didn't replace the oil by heavier one than 10W.

What's your opinions?

I forgot to add, my weight is around 80kg, usually I ride alone.

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Yep, 15w works good, I did that last time.

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I've started to disassembly the forks and everything was going smoothly until one point. I'v stucked at

"Pull the fork tube out until you feel resistance from the slider bushing. Then move it in and out, tapping the bushing lightly until the fork tube separates from the fork slider. The slider bushing will be forced out by the fork tube bushing." - Page 13-20 in the service manual.

The bushing does not go out under light pulling force nor under large force. I've tried also to pull and rotate the tube and many other movements, but without success.

Obviously, I've gone through all the previous steps described in manual.

What's going on? Anybody had similar issue?

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Have you taken the circlip out ? if you have they do need a fair amount of hard pulls.

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OK, the tubes and bushings went off. The solution was to heat the sealing area and then to pull the tubes out. I've just ordered a new bushings as they've damaged each other's teflon surface during disassembly.

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