Hi I have have a vfr 800 2002 fi model, please can anyone tell me if i can change my front fork oil, without removing forks from machine, thanks
If you have something to suck it out then yes otherwise it is better to take it off and clean them all up while they off the bike. It wasn't that bad. Ootv and I did it before my trip and it take about 4 hours.
Last time I did it, it took about 5hrs to do by myself. Its not hard, just time consuming. Make sure the seals are in good or better shape. Its no fun having to pull it apart again to change a seal.
Before we worked on Long's bike I had changed the oil, springs and valving on my 6 Gen forks without removing them from the bike, I didn't feel the need to remove them as they were still pretty new (2 yrs old) at the time. The hardest part is removing the bolt at the bottom of the forks, sometimes these get stuck and you can easily strip the head of the hex bolt, then all bets are off and you'll most likely have to remove the forks and get out the drill. The other thing that you need to consider is fork oil level, when off the bike you can have the fork pointed straight up and measure the oil level, but in the bike the forks are angled slightly so the reading will be off and you'll need to add it believe 10mm or 20mm to the oil level reading. In other words, the level you should get will be that much less than the standard 130mm. Sorry I don't have the exact number handy but can look for it. If you want to attempt this, raise the front end, any way you like except with a front end stand that lifts from under the forks as the lifting point (for obvious reasons), remove the front wheel and grab a bucket or other catch basin and place it under the fork(s). Loosen the Allen head (hex) bolt, you may want to use an impact wrench, as mentioned earlier, sometimes these can be stubborn to remove. Once you have loosened the bolt you can remove the top cap of the fork and then take the bolt out, this should allow the oil to flow right out. At this point you can remove the "innards" of the forks and give them an inspection and cleaning. I flushed out the inside of the fork tubes with some PJ-1 super cleaner and just let the fork drain for a while as I took apart the other fork. Once everything is nice and clean, reassemble the forks and put the bottom bolt back in. This part gets tricky as the valve that the bolt screws into is "floating", meaning it is not solidly attached to the damping rod assembly, sometimes getting the bolt started an be a pain. Note that you'll probably want to replace the crush washer and apply some lock-title to bolt before you get it started. Here's the other tricky part, in order to torque down the bolt, you'll need to put in the entire fork assembly (spring and spacer) and tighten the top cap down, this is in order to create enough tension on the assembly to allow the bolt to tighten and not just spin the valve assembly. Once the bolt is torqued down, remove the spring and top cap and do the same for the other fork. Poor your oil in, I would pre-measure the amount that is called for so that you'll be as close to what you'll need before you set the final oil level. I would pour in a little at a time and slide the fork stanchion up and down in between pours, once all the oil is in, do the other fork and then you'll need to collapse the fork all the way, again this is without the spring installed, with the fork all the way collapsed, take you measurement, either with a metric ruler or a fork oil measurement tool (looks like a giant syringe with a long needle). Make sure the ruler or syringe tip is along the edge of the tube closest to the gas tank, add or remove oil as needed. Once level is set, expand forks and install springs and top cap and reassemble front end. There may be other ways to do this but this is how I did it and everything seems to be just fine for me. Cheers!
Thanks for reply have you any idea on the amount of fluid in each one, my manual is not very clear, thanks again
Thank you for all the info, I think after the info, I will take forks off, thanks again for great advice
If you set oil level with forks attached, just use a suction tool at either the 9 or 3 o'clock position to set level just the same as if it was up !
