Hello All,
I have a 09 Electra Glide and am wondering if draining a little oil out of the front forks would help the ride? It seems to me that the front can be quit harsh on sharp bumps and the front certainly does not ride as smooth as the back with 5 psi in the shocks. How much oil would you recommend I drain? Air pressure is at 32 psi front, 40 psi rear.
Thank You, Bob

 

are they back to air shocks on the front? if it were me, i would drain all of the oil out of the shocks and replace with a higher viscosity oil. type e is equivalent to 10 wt, se heavy is equivalent to 20 wt. some folks do a 50/50 mix to get a 15 wt. i went with the se heavy and am quite pleased.

do a search for iclicks post on how to easily and quickly change fork oil.

 

I think he was referring to air pressure in the tires

 

yeah, okay. had other things going on when i first read this.... i would still go with what i said about changing fork oil though.

 

I agree the SE Heavy is a better choice that gives a slightly firmer but more controlled ride, but the OP is complaining about the ride with the Showa factory fish oil installed. On top of that he's running his tires 4psi lower than recommended, so I would think the extra firmness might not be satisfactory to him even though to you and me that translates into a better ride. I'm not sure what to recommend, actually, but I think I would at least pull the fish oil out and install some Type E. If he went with something even lighter than Type E I would think the ride would actually be worse and the front suspension would bottom frequently. Sometimes a firmer ride is actually a better ride overall because of the control factor.

 

I vote for the SE oil. You don't really want squishy, even though you may think you do.

 

Thanks to all for the replies. To clarify, I was just wondering if maybe the factory might have over filled the front forks creating this harsh ride on the front. I’ve only got 1000 miles on the bike so maybe the forks aren’t broke in yet. Is that also a possibility? I'm an average size man and I can't make them compress any by locking the front brake and rocking the bike.
Thanks, Bob

 

I changed the fork oil in mine when I installed the race-tech kit in the forks. I'm still not very happy though. The stock Harley forks just plain suck a$$. I'm getting ready to match up my Ohlins shocks with a Traxxion fork kit. www.traxxion.com or a x-factor kit from www.motorcyclemetal.com . A little pricey, but so far, all good reviews on both. Good luck, but don't remove oil from your forks. It wasn't overfilled from Harley, more than likely.

 

Removing fork oil could cause the forks to bottom out.
Best to drain completely and change to the type of oil if you want.
Add the recomended amount.