New fork oil? - not tyres. Think about it!

[muzikill]

After all the advice recently on how to clean out the forks and refurb them i got the bike back on the road today. I put in new fork oil (halfords own 10w) and new seals. I noticed a few riding issues before this apart from a leaky seal. The bike was hard to turn at low speed and felt twitchy and seemed to wobble a bit at speed and on corners at medium and high speed it didnt feel right (dangerous not right, running slightly wide). Now im running BT21's primarily because it was sitting for 3 years with them fitted and so many people dont rate them much.

So how does it feel now? - all issues gone. It's not the tyres. The bike is planted, rock solid and feels tight. Corners with ease. Even hit a few wet areas of the ride and it was fine. I'm 14st & the adjusters at the stanchion tops at the yoke are set back to factory and it feels perfect. I didnt realise just how much control i had lost and how much bad fork oil would affect it.

Now i know just how bad the bike was in the first place. It's hard to see it yourself unless youve had this done or ride a few bikes because if you ride the same bike you'll 'overlook it' and not even feel it as the bike gets older. You'll accept it as one of those things about having a older bike or the fact that it's a budget machine. Don't!

So before you go blaming the tyres (Uunless they really are that bad) have you considered having this done? Ive seen so many threads about people who have slated tyres and moved onto another manufacturers set and slated them as well.

(and halfords own oil is fine)

Snap.

[MJC-DEV]

Absolutely agree, could never the see the point of the BT021 abuse - sure later ones such as BT023 are better, but they should be. BT021 are pretty good all round IMHO.

What's the kinematic viscosity of the Halfords 10w oil?

[muzikill]

Dunno i never checked the bottle just chucked it in but it was thicker than the green muck that came out!. I cant compare it to other stuff as this is the first time ive changed it but it's transformed the bike back to something under my total control.

It wouldn't tell you on the bottle anyway.

I uses halfords own brand 10w and I have to say, after a few k miles it feels no different than before I changes the oil. I knew straight away it wasn't night and day improvement but I did feel some to start with. Perhaps I just got used to it again.

Seems to have developed more of a sensitivity to speed wobbles when hard on the throttle now though, I can almost expect them if I hit a bump with throttle Pinned. Off or neutral throttle and it's fine, on throttle it wobbles.

Don't really bother me that much, on the roads I use often I know where to crack off a touch just to avoid it.
Did fack all for forks diving on braking too but I hear that's not so much oil but something else.