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The problem is for most street motorcycles fork oil temp doesnt seem to have that wide of a range of temps. Forks are out front and have a relatively big surface area. My own testing with an IR thermometer on several different street motorcycles has shown that even as much as 10-15F above...

It isnt that I don't consider viscosities of fork oil, I do think that viscosity IS very important for fork oil, but viscosity and the difference between advertised weight on the front of the bottle vs the kinematic viscosity at 40C are just about all that dominate in every conversation on fork...

Yea, I usually lightly coat the fork tubes with a silicone based grease containing PTFE, which is how I know increased stiction can make a difference. Getting a used bike with dry fork tubes and adding a little lube on the outside can make it very clear.

Thank you, this sort of info is exactly what I was looking for. So in your experience how would these compare to something like a mid quality synthetic engine oil (maybe Mobil1) or more modern synthetic ATF (thinking something generic like maybe Castrol Transmax or similar)? Particularly as far...

I suppose, which is why I keep keep coming back to this: So far it all appears to be a bunch of hokum as far as I can tell, and other fluids seem to work just as well if not better while being significantly cheaper.

Honestly I am just asking for any differences that someone of my understanding level of oils, which is low, might not be aware of. Motorcycle suspension damping valves are like stacks of very thin washers, and fork damping cartridges achieve their damping by some combination of shoving the oil...

Again, what makes the fluid "correct"? As I asked before: Yes, although I am not sure why this subject seems to almost completely dominate every conversation about fork oil, but it seems very simple, the number on the front of the bottle is meaningless for forks, as I said in my original...

Actually no, those arnt on the same topic at all. I was looking for the differences in fork oils and other fluids BESIDES viscosity. If you read through those you will find almost every post about the fluid itself in every one is about viscosity or viscosity index. The exceptions are questions...

Thats the whole point of this thread though, what is a bottle of good fork oil and how do you know?

Generally I think that ATF has a lot of the properties of good fork oil, however ATF needs to maintain a certain level of friction, and motorcycle fork oil should be as slippery as possible. Possibly combining it with something like Moly or PTFE might improve things, I don't know for sure.

This is more of a general discussion than specific, however my current project is increasing spring rate and preload by a significant margin in an FJR1300ES that has one fork for rebound and one for compression and lacks independant rebound/compression control. Since I am already at max damping...

So flipping through stuff on fork oil, it seems like almost the entire conversation is always about viscosity, which sure is important, but that is also like a 20 second sound blip: check the cst viscosity @40c and select one for your needs. Moving on. I am trying to find out other properties...