Fork - Oil

[kiki]

I have a slight problem,the front fork of my husband's Royal Star Venture is to soft. He wants to take off the oil from it,and put new oil in. My question,where do u let the oil pour out,and where does he put the new one in. In one word,complete oil change on the front fork of his motor. Also,what type of oil does it take?

 

Hope i can hear something soon. Thanks already

 

Greetz

Kiki

[MrRadi8]

I have a slight problem,the front fork of my husband's Royal Star Venture is to soft. He wants to take off the oil from it,and put new oil in. My question,where do u let the oil pour out,and where does he put the new one in. In one word,complete oil change on the front fork of his motor. Also,what type of oil does it take?

 

Hope i can hear something soon. Thanks already

 

Greetz

Kiki

 

Has he put air in the forks? There are fittings on the top of the fork to add up to 7# air in each fork. I'd try that before I went trying to change oil.

[Tartan Terror]

Right he is. Put some air in the forks and you will fix that. I suggest getting the Progressive suspension pump or get one at Harley (Same one but Cheaper at harley) so that you dont put too much in. Dont use a high pressure air hose.

[kiki]

yes he's put air in,and he's used a high pressure air hose for it. So that might be the problem. We don't really have such a pump yet. But seems it's a good idea to purchase one,never a bad buy anyway. I'll let him know...Just in case that wouldn't solve the problem,does any of u know what type of oil goes in there. We have the manual,but as usual,nothing is mentioned on what type of oil it takes.Typical of course.

 

Thanks for the quick replies already :-)

Greetz

Kiki

[Rick Butler]

Kiki,

 

The big problem on what you are asking about draining the oil, is there is no place in these forks to drain the oil from like we had on the 1st gen Ventures. So this means, you either have to suck it out from the top of the forks after taking the fork caps off, or take them off completely and turn them upside down to drain. The bike comes with a light 10 wt fork oil, where some folks use a 15 or 20 wt fork oil when changing, which slows down the fork action.

 

However if he feels the forks are too soft, the problem is really with the springs being too light. If it were me, I'd either drop in a set of Progressive Springs but even better would be a set of constant rate springs from Sonic Springs out of Oklahoma City. The spring rate of the springs that come with the RSV are rated at .90 kg/cm. On bikes as heavy as ours, you are really better off with springs rated at 1.20 kg/cm regardless of the weight of the rider.

 

And putting air in the forks really only changes the fork preload, which is nothing more than changing the ride height of the bike. Heavier weight oil will change the rebound dampening and more oil will effect the compression dampening. These 3 things are the only changes that you can do to a set of dampening forks without adding Race Tech cartridge emulators or drilling the rebound holes.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Rick

[GeorgeS]

How many miles on this bike ??

 

If its in the 50,000 range, then new springs, and oil change are called for.

 

Springs don't last forever, 50,000 is about average for motorcycle front fork springs.

[RedRider]

Kiki,

 

The big problem on what you are asking about draining the oil, is there is no place in these forks to drain the oil from like we had on the 1st gen Ventures. So this means, you either have to suck it out from the top of the forks after taking the fork caps off, or take them off completely and turn them upside down to drain. The bike comes with a light 10 wt fork oil, where some folks use a 15 or 20 wt fork oil when changing, which slows down the fork action.

 

However if he feels the forks are too soft, the problem is really with the springs being too light. If it were me, I'd either drop in a set of Progressive Springs but even better would be a set of constant rate springs from Sonic Springs out of Oklahoma City. The spring rate of the springs that come with the RSV are rated at .90 kg/cm. On bikes as heavy as ours, you are really better off with springs rated at 1.20 kg/cm regardless of the weight of the rider.

 

And putting air in the forks really only changes the fork preload, which is nothing more than changing the ride height of the bike. Heavier weight oil will change the rebound dampening and more oil will effect the compression dampening. These 3 things are the only changes that you can do to a set of dampening forks without adding Race Tech cartridge emulators or drilling the rebound holes.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Rick

 

 

Rick, The Sonic Spring website does not list the Gen 2 RSV. They do list the XVZ13 Royal Star with a 1.2 kg/mm spring rate. Is this the correct one?

 

Thanks, RR

[kiki]

Well today he went and bought a Progressive suspension pump, he filled up the forks with enough air. He'll try it out over the weekend,if that's working out fine now. If not,he'll try the oil part. Thanks again for all the advice.

 

 

Greetz

Kiki

xxx

[V7Goose]

yes he's put air in,and he's used a high pressure air hose for it. So that might be the problem. We don't really have such a pump yet. But seems it's a good idea to purchase one,never a bad buy anyway. I'll let him know...Just in case that wouldn't solve the problem,does any of u know what type of oil goes in there. We have the manual,but as usual,nothing is mentioned on what type of oil it takes.Typical of course.

 

Thanks for the quick replies already :-)

Greetz

Kiki

I sure do hope he didn't blow anything with that air hose! I don't know much about the inside of these forks, but with a max pressure of 7 lbs, any blast from a normal air hose is liable to destroy something! Good luck,

Goose

[Rick Butler]

Jeff,

 

He lists them under the Royal Star where the Venture really needs the 1.20 kg/mm, regardless of the weight of the rider.

 

And Goose don't worry about blowing anything in these forks.

 

Rick

[kiki]

Thanks guys,

 

Apparantly so far nothing seems to be damaged on the forks. He asked me if someone knows what thet ideal pressure is for both sides. Front and rear suspension. So it would work perfect in the curvy roads they do when cruising with the motor. Now he has put 0.5kg/mm in it. Maybe he can replace his suspension. Rick,u were talking about some suspension. U don't happen to know what that would be like in price perhaps?

 

Greetz

Kiki