That's what my book says, and what I use to do. At 10K, the fork oil would be BLACK. Dust DOES get in there past the seals. Now I change mine at every 5K service. Wheel bearings get greased at every tire change (rear once a year, front every other year). Considering I got 128,000 miles out of one wheel bearing set and the other set was retired when I built new wheels at 195,000 miles, I guess I serviced them often as they needed to be.


One more word of advice on the wheel bearings. Don't use a high pressure washer anywhere near your wheel hubs. It's all too easy to force water past the seals.

 

Good job Uncle G. You maintained them well.....

 

I would like to thank the genius that came up with the Mity-Vac method of changing the fork oil. What a piece of cake! Took me less than 20 minutes. Man..the old oil was black and nasty! The ride is incredibly smoother now. By the way, how much air dio you guys run in your rear shocks when riding solo? I weigh 215 and the manual calls for about 3 lbs of air for my weight but, hitting a rough spot in the rode can be harsh. I wonder if I need more air or less air??

 

42019.1
I've been putting this off forever, because it's PITA to change on a full fairing bike. Too much to take off to get to the fork caps. Just got through changing out the fork oil on my '89 Evo.

1. Take load off the front end. Did this with my bike lift.

2. Let out air, and remove shrader valve. Location of shrader valve air fork suspension varies on the year model.

3. Remove fork drain bolts. This took a little work, because they were on there pretty good. Easy to strip if you are not careful. Best with an impact screwdriver. Didn't have one, but some PB blaster and a little heat did the trick with no damage to bolt. Take a break, and let the forks drain.

4. A very inexpensive mityvac copycat from Harbor-Freights, which comes with assorted attachments for other jobs made this a one man or woman operation. I used a small 8oz water bottle as the reservoir.

5. Time to hook it up. Replace the bolt on the slider of the side you are not filling. Fill bottle with fluid and attach tubing to drain hole using one of the plastic adapters. Hook mityvac to your vavle. Then...pump away and watch the fluid get sucked up into the forks. You will get very little drain, as you unhook the adapter and put your drain bolt back in. I used toyota ATF, because that's what I had around.

6. Repeat on the other side. Then replace your shrader valve, and pump up your air reservoir to the desired psi. I put 12 psi in mine. Use a small hand pump. No need to go crazy, unless you want to blow your seals. All Done!!

 

Definitely a lot of work there. nothing like a Softail fatboy. Well done. Should be good for a while now..