You will need some special tools to service cartridge forks, and the ones in this bike are NOT FUN to work on. If you have never done them before, I'd advise you to take to a dealer and pay them to do it.
mattchewn said:Kman,
I talked to the folks at Traction when I ordered my new suspension setup. They advise the oil be changed at the 15-20K mark for our sport tour kind of riding. Here is why;
Our forks, (C14) have a setup where the bushings are not exactly serviceable. Since they will wear faster with contaminated oil than with clean oil just makes sense to keep it clean right? You change you oil when it is dirty, (or before) to prolong your engine life right?
Matt
Kman said:Checked with the local Kawi dealer (Nault's in Windham NH) and they typically don't do C14 forks until the seal leak or if there is a noticeable deterioration in handling. So I will probably go beyond 20K before considering servicing.
mattchewn said:JTX,
There is no drain on the C14 forks. I will be installing one on my new ZX14 forks I am installing though! Life should be simple!
Matt
mattchewn said:JTX,
There is no drain on the C14 forks. I will be installing one on my new ZX14 forks I am installing though! Life should be simple!
Matt
Tundra Tom said:It seems the first fork oil change is important as I've seen more contamination in stock oil forks. It may be lower quality OEM fork oil or/and the parts wearing into each other a bit but it's always been cleaner after the first change. I was going to mention flushing them out the first time gets allot of additional crud out of the bottom of the legs. I just changed my Bandit fork oil and installed gold valves and used contact cleaner to flush them out the the bottom cartridge mounting hole. Lots more swarf hiding there.
I used various brands of oil and worked with a guy who was a top tier flat track/ice racer. I asked what brand he used since he rebuilt and tuned more forks than I ever dreamed of. He said he also tried many brands and now only uses Silcolene. I inquired "because it dampened the best"? He said not really, it always came out cleaner than the other brands hence less wear. Works for me.
Sailor_chic said:When changing the fork oil, how is everyone cleaning the old oil and residue out of the forks? It seems to me, to have an effective oil change, that the fork tube/legs should be clean before adding new oil. On my other bikes, I have done this before. But I completely disassembled the forks as I was changing the seals. So I was able to clean the tubes out with Simple Green. However on my C14, I was not going to change the seals, only looking to do an oil change. Thoughts please.
Sailor_chic said:When changing the fork oil, how is everyone cleaning the old oil and residue out of the forks? It seems to me, to have an effective oil change, that the fork tube/legs should be clean before adding new oil. On my other bikes, I have done this before. But I completely disassembled the forks as I was changing the seals. So I was able to clean the tubes out with Simple Green. However on my C14, I was not going to change the seals, only looking to do an oil change. Thoughts please.