very stiff front forks........

[oldgrumpy]

guys thanks for all your help every thing has worked out great ...i,ve got new progressive springs pr11-1106 or something close as i,m not in my shed ..and i,ve used 20wte bell ray oil ... up to 5 " from the top.... what can i do to soften it all little please ... regards david sorry its a 1980 gs 1000E

 

[ozman]

guys thanks for all your help every thing has worked out great ...i,ve got new progressive springs pr11-1106 or something close as i,m not in my shed ..and i,ve used 20wte bell ray oil ... up to 5 " from the top.... what can i do to soften it all little please ... regards david sorry its a 1980 gs 1000E

Use a lighter fork oil....eg 10w

Oz

 

[trippivot]

just take oil out of the fork. equal amounts from each. you can take 5 more inches from the top. making it 10.

the oil level has more to do this the first half of the fork travel.

if you have problems with rebound then go to the lighter oil.

 

[Steve]

When you say "5 inches from the top", how are you measuring that? :-k

The proper way is to have the fork tube held vertical, spring removed, fork tubes fully compressed. Essentially, this means that you will never have less than 5 inches of air space in there.

If you have the forks mounted on the bike and extended, then measured your 5 inches, it's no wonder they won't move.

Oh, the 20w oil doesn't help, either, unless you make Chef, TCK and me look like little kids.
(We're all a minimum of 2 metres tall, and minimum 16 stones.)

I read once on a suspension tuning site that you should use the lightest oil that will do the job for you. Instead of stopping at 15w, jump directly to 10w, see if that works for you. You will have a plush ride that should be reasonably damped.

.