I have drained my forks on the bike to replace the perished seals.
upon reading my haynes manual, it says to top up the fluid with 450cc of 10w fork oil.

1- Is 10w fork oil correct, or is there a better alternative ?
2- Does my haynes manual mean 450cc of the oil in each fork or 225?

Ive been a melon as i should have measured what came out.
Cheers

I've always used 10w on the road and 15w for racing but then i'm only 8 & 1/2 stone so may not be the best benchmark.
The oil capacity is 450cc per fork. Use genuine fork seals if you can, aftermarket ones can tend to be tighty and stick a little.

Spot on that was very informative!

Measuring the air gap is more accurate than just tipping a measured ammount of oil :)

And what should that measure ?

When filling the fork legs up you need to bleed the air out by compressing and extending them until there is no air still trapped in the bottom of the legs, then before you put the springs back in compress the legs fully then insert a rule and measure from the top edge of the fork leg down into the inside, the k models should measure 90 mm to the oil and 122 mm for k, l, m, n, models .... Then re extend the legs and finish assembling as you would p.s. This is all in the Haynes manual on the first page of the suspension section

All of the above information is good but a simpler way to set your air gaps is to use a large syringe with the appropriate length of plastic tubing attached - slightly overfill the forks, stick the syringe in and draw out the excess oil until you are only sucking air, at which point the level is correct (done this way it will also be exactly the same in both legs).

Rick

RickOliver wrote:All of the above information is good but a simpler way to set your air gaps is to use a large syringe with the appropriate length of plastic tubing attached - slightly overfill the forks, stick the syringe in and draw out the excess oil until you are only sucking air, at which point the level is correct (done this way it will also be exactly the same in both legs).

Rick

this is the easiest and most accurate way to do thing, the local bike shop who do my forks do the same thing.

Do you have the later / early forks, I can't remember off hand but the forkoil amount might be different depending on what forks you have