anyone know a good way to get oil in the rear air shocks?
my friend joe swapped with a forum member for his longer ones and oil ran out in shipping. he called last night and said syringe method i suggested was not working.

 

I'm a lazy *** so what I do is I take the shocks off, mount one upside down and lean on the back of the seat pushing down and squeeze all the old oil out. do the same with the other shock. Then mount both and replace the oil either with a syringe or tube and funnel. Its not rocket science but I've also had trouble hitting the toilet after too many baileys creme and coffee, so talk him through it again.

 

I have changed oil in HD air shocks many times using a turkey injector syringe with the tip of the needle broken off to open the hole up a lil. It is still a lil bit of a slow process but it has never failed to work. I stick the tip of the needle in the rubber line attached to the air shock. It fits perfect & makes a good seal.

 

I found an easy way to get the oil out is to remove both shocks & connect all the hoses up on the work bench. Pump the shocks up to 25 or 30 psi with your hand pump. Clamp the shock you are wanting to empty upside down in a vise. Clamp off the hose going to the opposite shock. Remove the hose of the shock in the vise at the first connection, leaving a length of hose on the shock. Stick the hose in a graduated container so you can measure the oil as it comes out of the shock. It will be under pressure but it will not make a mess because the opening in the oil line is so small. Re install new oil as I posted above.

 

Mity Vac brake bleeder in pump mode will do it in about 5 minutes. Also works well for pulling the oil out.

 

Yea, I bet that would work good.

 

we will be mounting new shocks sat thanks for all the suggestions!

 

I did that after reading about it on here. Worked great. Mighty Vac was around $30 and I have it for doing brake work on cars & bikes in the future.

BTW, I changed to 10w Bel-Ray suspension fluid. Made a big difference. Much better ride now with less air pressure.

 

Where did the oil leak out of? Hopefully the air line hole. If it leaked from another location the shock probably isn't usable.
A vacuum as suggested works great. I've done several sets.

 

I've done a few sets like this myself. I settled on 10 ozs of 10wt and 2.5 ozs of 15wt. That combination has a very smooth ride to me.

2010 Limited with some stuff!!