I recently had some unplanned excitement, in the form of blowing out a fork seal real good. After a nice weekend out, I noticed my fork seemed a little... 'wet' at the gas pump. Lost enough fork oil to soak my brake pads on the trip home, where I kept it dripping into a pan. Spent some time ordering parts, tearing down the front end, and got the forks sealed up tight. With my rebuild, I ended up using the recommended Showa SS-8. Trying to pretend I'm a diligent consumer though, I did some reading and cross-shopping. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much I learned.
At first, it seemed simple enough. My manual called for SS-8, which is sold as 10W. Easy! But when my peanut sized brain types 'best 10w fork oil' into the internet box, I see threads discussing fairly significant sounding viscosity differences. Many references to a chart from Peter Verdone, in which the Showa SS-8 is surrounded on both sides by oils that aren't 10W. I see threads about Goldwing riders using ATF in their forks, and saying that it's even in the manual. I see threads about people using ATF in their adventure bikes and swearing by it. At this point, I just figured that the sky was falling and ran scared for the Showa fluid.
Even now that the bike has been fixed, I'm still left wondering what exactly fork oil is. Is it somehow related to ATF, or does ATF just happen to be similarly thick and slippery? Does 10W even mean anything? Other than just doing a straight OEM replacement as I have, how do you pick a decent fork oil?
At first, it seemed simple enough. My manual called for SS-8, which is sold as 10W. Easy! But when my peanut sized brain types 'best 10w fork oil' into the internet box, I see threads discussing fairly significant sounding viscosity differences. Many references to a chart from Peter Verdone, in which the Showa SS-8 is surrounded on both sides by oils that aren't 10W. I see threads about Goldwing riders using ATF in their forks, and saying that it's even in the manual. I see threads about people using ATF in their adventure bikes and swearing by it. At this point, I just figured that the sky was falling and ran scared for the Showa fluid.
Even now that the bike has been fixed, I'm still left wondering what exactly fork oil is. Is it somehow related to ATF, or does ATF just happen to be similarly thick and slippery? Does 10W even mean anything? Other than just doing a straight OEM replacement as I have, how do you pick a decent fork oil?