Front fork Oil Help

hey,

I went out with my mate to elvington at weekend and i had always moaned about the front forks really diving when applying brake etc.
So i let him have a go and he said it was way way way too soft for road and a slight bit of brake and they were diving most of their travel.

The question is its a 2000 sv650 anyone know what grade the fork oil is in them standard i can't seem to find it in my haynes manual becasuse i was going to put uprated fork oil in them to frim them up

i have just found it and its 10W what would people recoomend me to put in would 15w be okay?

I think the bikes came with 7.5 w oil though depending on your own weight something heavier might be a idea. Though if its a 2000 model do you know if the oil has ever been changed? I normally get about 10,000 miles between my changes, just for reference I use 15w oil in my forks with standard springs and I weight about 13stone.

hey mate i dont htink its ever been changed , im 6 foot 1" and i am about 13.5 stone so do you think 15w should be okay?

I think it would be just fine for you... how many miles has the bike done in all?

Its rather easy to do the oil change, if you have a Haynes manual it should be all in there.

hey mate its done 19,000 miles so is well over due im guessing. Does it also matter how you ride the bike as well as too how "hard" to go?

how much will i need as well will 2 ltrs do both?

1Ltr should do both, I think each leg requires about 475ml, but you measure the capacity by the gap between the top of the oil and the top of the fork leg.

A search on the forum will give full details. Just bear in mind that any increase in oil viscosity also effects the rebound (that is the speed the forks return to their starting position) too.

tbh i find suspension really confusing just know mines too soft had a go on my mates triumph speed triple 1050 and suspension felt so much more planted not springing up and down all over.

[embee]

Changing the oil will certainly help get it back to where it started, but the real problem is the springs are too low rate (not stiff enough). You can't solve that problem with oil. Going too thick on the oil can introduce other problems with mis-matched spring/damping.

Fork oil spec can be misleading, one manufacturer's 10W can be a thick as another's 15W at some temperatures, see the table here and compare numbers.