10W Hydraulic Oil

So there is only one shop that carries the 10w "Fork Oil" Its a motorcycle shop about an hour away. Now, my Local Napa has 10 Weight, "Cherry Picker" Or "Hydraulic Lifts" hydraulic oil...
Cheap too. 8.00 a Gallon.
Throws up a red flag in my head. Thought I'd put it past you guys
-Chris

 

Good question.

I can think of 2 potential issues:

1 - fork oil might be subject to higher velocities and pressure gradients (at the orifices) than hydraulic powered systems.

2 - there is no separate reservoir on a fork, so the working fluid is in contact with the air.

I wonder if fork oil needs an anti-foaming additive because of those circumstances.

For what it's worth some of the older bikes call for using ATF as a fork fluid. ATF is just high detergent hydraulic oil.

 

used atf in my honda cb500t forks with no ill effects... dunno about these tho

 

This stuff at Napa has anti-foaming properties.. It read off just like the real fork oil at my local Bike shop. The only difference I saw between the two was one said "for motorcycle" and the other said "for industrial use"
I dunno. I dont think I'm chance it right now

 

Wiser words than these would be tough to find.........

 

But I have seen wiser. haha

I think I'll stick to Chacal-bought fork oil when I get around to it.

(Little do we know, he's filling fork oil bottles with a combination of baby oil and Pert plus...)

lol.

 

You're not going to HURT anything using ATF; but "real" fork oil will perform better in the long run. If these were dirt bikes, I would give different advice; but street bikes don't beat up on their forks like a dirt bike.

 

But I add anti-foaming agents and friction reducers and stabilizing agents to the Pert Plus, and that's what allows me to charge the obscene mark-ups on those products which will soon allow me to retire wealthy.........

 

HAH!

 

It's baby oil and mouthwash (with friction modifiers and anti-foaming agents) the Pert Plus is too heavy; that's reserved for gear oil additives.

 

Too Funny

 

Lol. Love to see that in a thread.
"Guys I messed up. Used Pert Plus as Substitute for Fork Oil. Read it'd be ok in a post"

 

I changed mine using the 20 weight fork oil because of the bike being older and worn springs i assume. Love it! works great for me.

 

I put 15W in my 550s and I find the forks work a lot better than with 10W.

The Progressive Suspension springs were a major improvement too.

 

I am running 20W in my seca 750 along with race tech springs and chacal supplied bushings and seals. everything feels very nice like stock did 20+ years ago when I only weighed a buck sixty. race tech dust seals are to large and would not go in without getting bent up or distorted. save your money the first time around and buy your seals from chacal

 

Geez You guys.. Seriously Suggest Mobil 1 ATF.. it is more than "good' in damper rod Forks. OURS! This stuff will stiffen up your forks ...to the point where they almost work, the ONLY tested 'better' Fork oil is Belray HVI.. not cheap though.

Try the Mobil 1 ...It's certainly cheap enough... and even if you don't like the results and dump it, you will have flushed serious crap out of your Forks.
Forget the W #'s they are largely meaningless in Shock applications., only having relevance between weights within a Brand range

Bit of Reading here might help:
http://www.peterverdonedesigns.com/lowspeed.htm