Fork Oil??

[350Xccelerator]

Anyone know whats the best kind to use? The forks on my xr350r seem to be really soft. What Wt. would be the best to use on a dirt bike? i want to stiffen up the forks a little bit

I recenlty put some 10wt in my 350x but that was because the forks were leaking and i needed to replace the fork seals not because they were too soft.

[dcreel]

Find out what weight the fork oil is supposed to be, and use a heavier weight fork oil. If the fork oil hasn't been changed in a long time, just changing the fork oil back to spec will make a world of difference.

[350Xccelerator]

Thats the thing, i have no idea when it was last changed. I barely took it out for its first ride last weekend since i bought it

[350Xccelerator]

It says in the manual to coat all parts in 10w, so im guessing thats what its supposed to be. Now i have to decide whether to use 10w or 15w

[cr480r]

alot of bikes are just simply undersprung.. especially with heavier riders... Rememeber that changing the oil wt. is going to change the rebound characteristics as well.. did you try simply raising the oil level? Even just bleeding out any negative pressure can make a big difference. Do it with forks fully extended.

[WIkid500]

The Honda 200x manual states you should run ATF, I don't know what yours needs but it wouldn't be bad to get rid of the old stuff and cycle some ATF through the forks to clean everything out. The oil that came out of mine didn't even look like oil.

[MonroeMike]

It says in the manual to coat all parts in 10w, so im guessing thats what its supposed to be. Now i have to decide whether to use 10w or 15w

The Clymer manual says DEXRON ATF or 10W fork oil, Pages 32-33.

[350Xccelerator]

So should i go with 10wt or 15wt?

[HONDA_ATC_FREAK]

I have dextron atf in a pair of my forks thats what the manual calls for the 200m forks, when I changed it to rebuild them when I got them it didn't even look like oil it smell HORRIBLE and was really nasty took a lot of solvent to clean it all out.

[Dirtcrasher]

Depends how heavy you are, 200lbs plus needs 20 weight oil...............

[ametzker]

I would go with 20wt or I have had some good luck using certain brands of the sysnthetic motor oil like a 0/15wt. Works great and I was using it for Evolution mx racing on a 1979 yz125. Worked way better than the ATF which seemed to do nothing at all. You can also try manually stretching the springs that will definitley stiffen it up for a good while.

[muthey]

if you don't know when it was last changed there is a good chance it has never been changed also when changing it thoroughly check your seals, is a pain to change fluid and just leak it all back out because of bad seals

[350Xccelerator]

What about mixing different weights? i have an unused liter of 5wt laying around and i was thinking about mixing it with some 20wt. Im thinking about doing it just to use the 5wt, because ill probably never use it on its own.

[ama009]

I have a question on the fork oil, so i decided to hijack this thread. The Tri z manual states you should use 10W, but Dirtcrasher stated for over 200lbs to use 20w. Would hydraulic oil work? I don't want to use ATF because in my experience it eats through seals/ o-rings after a while.

[atctim]

Use 20WT - I'm fat and it works for me :)