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From: Log home in SE Michigan full time. Log cabin in east TN, Smoky Mountians part time
Kris.....You'll need to get the front tire off the ground to remove the pressure from the fork springs. If no when you remove the cap the springs push up....into your inner fairing.
2. No need to flush. Just add the correct amount and ride.
I just rode 995 miles during bike week solo and NO back issues. LAst fall wife and I rode 500+ miles and no back issues. I fixed the fork and shock problem : ) for cheap.
There are lots of us who use a Mity Vac and a homemade copper manifold to vacumn the old oil from the shocks and "shoot" the new oil back in by pulling a vacume. You don't have to remove any tins except the screws in the lower fork.
I thought my front shocks were very spongy from new. I drained and added SE Heavy Fork Oil and they are perfect now.
I did my first fork oil change in 2008 at 21k miles, using the procedure I wrote-up at the time, basically the same as the OP's. I did it again at 44k, again at 53k (two weeks ago), and will standardize on 10k intervals from now on. Each time the oil looked dark and full of microscopic metal particles, making me wonder what's wearing in there.
The first time I used SE Heavy (not the Racing variety) and liked the added control, lack of bottoming, and favorable increase in firmness. On the second change I took Dawg's recommendation and mixed equal parts of Type E with SE Heavy and liked that mix better, using it for my last change as well.
Kris.....You'll need to get the front tire off the ground to remove the pressure from the fork springs. If no when you remove the cap the springs push up....into your inner fairing.
2. No need to flush. Just add the correct amount and ride.
I just rode 995 miles during bike week solo and NO back issues. LAst fall wife and I rode 500+ miles and no back issues. I fixed the fork and shock problem : ) for cheap.
Also note that the 36mm wrench in the tool kit is a bit large for the fork caps, which are 1 3/8". This tool worked for my first oil change, but not the second, and I bought a $10 wrench on Amazon.com which I now use as my dedicated wrench for this job. There is little clearance in any direction, so the right wrench is important.
There's a long discussion of this job here (scroll down to Post #23 and read from there).
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