Recomendations on fork oil level please

[jambo]

For my money I find 15w can be a wee bit crashy on the road, but I do a lot of miles in south London which is like driving through any post-apocolyptic film staring Arnie...

The Haynes manual has standard air gap for an EU SV650 from 99-01 as 104mm. But it's entirely possible you'd want a slightly larger gap. I'm just giving you the text version.

That's a little under 0.5L per leg.

Jambo

[yorkie_chris]

It controls the progression of the fork in last part of it's travel, if you find you're not using as much travel as you want then take some out, if bottoming all the time put more in.

It is an adjustment to make not a be all and end all setting that's right or wrong.

Originally Posted by jambo

For my money I find 15w can be a wee bit crashy on the road

I used a Motul Expert 15w and it was far too crashy, but it had a cst@40 viscosity rating of 57.1 which is far too high for a damper rod fork. Hydraulic lock happy. Didn't know about the cst@40 rating until I had that problem and researched it, because everyone on here just says "you want a 15w fork oil", which IMO is plain bad advice. No two 15w oils are the same viscosity.

Originally Posted by jambo

The Haynes manual has standard air gap for an EU SV650 from 99-01 as 104mm. But it's entirely possible you'd want a slightly larger gap. I'm just giving you the text version.

I've never found any manual that agrees with another on air gap. The air gap I posted for the pointy was copy & paste from the Suzuki workshop manual, but I found it far too stiff and had to take it up to about 110 before I was happy with it.

[Sid Squid]

Oil level is different between models with and without preload adjusters as internal fork volume is different, thus air spring rate change is different too.

[Viney]

Im over 16st. I dont have any issues with any fork oil. Im sure if i filled them with sand, i could still compress it ...ok, this isnt helping

Originally Posted by Viney

Im over 16st. I dont have any issues with any fork oil. Im sure if i filled them with sand, i could still compress it ...ok, this isnt helping

I was 16st 6 (but lost 12lb since new year ) and I found a oil of cst@40 of 57.1 too hard on a pointy, and just riding up a dropped kerb could cause a hydraulic lock and a clonk, and that's going to happen whatever weight you are. With the Motul Expert range on a pointy you really need to be looking at a 10w, or at most a 12.5w blend.

Or get cartridge emulators.

I'm dropping forks off at garage tonight so ill leave it with the mechanic to sort out, but I guess somewhere between 125 and 110 will be sufficiant