Alright, so I know how to change all of the oils, lube what's gotta be lubed, except for the forks. how do you first, check the fork oil and second, change the forking oil? 09 fatBob. trying to save a couple of bucks

 

Why would you want to mess with your fork oil? The service interval is 50,000 miles.

It's one of the few things on a Harley that falls into the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" category.

Keep your head down.

 

The stock fork oil is garbage. Remove forks from triple clamps after you have removed the top cap. Turn them upside down and let them drain. Refill with 27oz 20wt Fork Fluid of your choosing per leg.Refer to service manual for specifics regarding removal.

 

50,000 miles? I dunno mine was changed at 20,000 per specs

 

I sucked mine out with a vacuum, put more in and sucked it out again to make sure it was all clean. The factory oil sucks and the levels were off from one fork to the other, mine was 4oz off and I've heard of them being off way more than that. I have Amsoil shock therapy 10# in mine now. While it's open you should think about a set of springs to help the dive under braking, it helped mine a lot.

 

 

I tried 20W in mine and it was too heavy. Made the front end skittish and juddery when on even slightly bumpy surfaces.

I put some good 15W in and it feels just right.

 

Changed mine at just over 8k on the ticker, the old oil was grayish and milky, and really really thin. Lots of sludge too. Put in the screaming eagle race oil, and wow, what a difference! So much smoother, waaaaay less dive when braking, and waaaaay smoother in turns.

 

 

After viewing Mud's extremely helpful and informative posts, I'd say -- 1) Mud's mechanical abilities rank (on a scale of 1 to 10) somewhere around 9.9 whether amateur or professional and, 2) I'm sticking by my original assessment of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" on this one.

But if I ever HAVE to get into my forks, for whatever reason, it's sure nice to have good folks like Mud around to give us some direction.