'07 Fork Oil Change

Y

Yates

New member
You're either extremely naive or you're just being sarcastic. I can't tell which. Dealer service departments, especially those owned by Harley dealers, are the epitome of ripoff parlors.

Thanks iclick, for giving us one more way to avoid dealership hassles.
 
The '02-'05's have cartridge forks, which may involve a different procedure. I do know that disassembling these forks is more involved than earlier or later models and requires special tools, but I can't say how this method would work with them.
 
You're welcome. The forks are still doing great after 10k miles, so I have no reason to believe we need to revert to the more-arduous procedures outlined in the service manual. When I do it again, probably at 20k intervals, I'll follow the same procedure. I didn't see Robzuc97's post back in October or I would've responded to it.
 
I wouldn't bother - he was whining about us not doing things by the book. Problem with his argument is that the book says to do it at 50K.

We were talking about interim and upgrade changes. So, given his perspective - the mighty MOCO knows its all good, until 50K. As far as micro adjusting the fluid; I believe there's enough compressible air in there to accommodate a tablespoon one way or the other, if not we would have heard about front ends blowing up. Just my automotive engineering perspective.
 
iclick there was someone a month or two ago who did a great write up on this issue. i have no idea as to how to use the search function in here, but it was a great write up on the fork oil change. it was also on a late model batwing fairing as well.
 
iclick
Thanks for the writeup. After doing it as you outlined I was thinking that I probably wouldn't have come up with that procedure myself without a lot of trial and error. So, thanks for saving me a lot of grief figuring this thing out.

As usual, I didn't read your instructions thoroughly so screwed up the first fill. Once I got it right, it went smoothly. The outcome of having the heavier oil in the forks was amazing. Firmer ride and got rid of the wallowing in some corners.

I have to tell you my main apprehension was dealing with the ignition. Wound up having to take it apart and put it back together 4 times (can never get things right the first time) and surprisingly, never had a problem. Moving bars all over the place went back together just fine. Hope my luck holds next time.
 
The ignition shouldn't be a problem if you remove the knob and replace it in the same position. I keep my forks straight, turn the knob all the way to the left (lock), then remove it as per the prescribed method. If you have small hands you can use a small finger to push the tab instead of a screwdriver. You can then move the handlebars around as you wish, but stay away from the left full-lock position, then replace the knob mechanism in the same position you removed it. If you do that nothing should go awry.

The only time I had a problem was when I replaced the knob to unlock the forks after moving them too far to the left, but forget to include the spacers. By doing that the knob and tumblers were not in the correct position and I had to futz around with a screwdriver 'til I got everything aligned properly.
 
Yah, that left locked position is useless - can't take the fairing cap off there and can't get at anything on the left side. I got it in that position a couple of times (one because the manual says to and another when I turned the bars too far left) - so, thanks to your previous comments of having problems with it when you didn't put all the spacers back, I diligently reassembled the whole thing and it worked fine.
 
What about hooking up one of those hand style vacuum pumps to the bottom of the forks and using vacuum to draw it all out, then after it is out and measured letting the vacumm slowly release which would draw the fresh oil back up into the folks??
 
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