Honda Motorcycles - FireBlades.org banner

CBR900RR 28 year old fork oil that only slightly stinks .... is that possible?

988 views 8 replies 4 participants last post by  tubehead 
#1 ·
I have worked on hundreds of bikes over the years and am pretty sure I know when I am pulling a virgin motorcycle apart.My 92 CBR has no marks on the fork caps whatso ever and even being super careful when I pulled them apart if you look at them now carefully you can see that the alloy has some tiny marks that show a socket has been there.
My bike has done a genuine 31000ks (19,375 miles) and I have full service records from the original owner and the forks where untouched.
I was expecting pretty disgusting smelling black oil in the forks but it looked pretty good even the seals were not that hard.

Has anyone else here pulled there forks apart on a low mileage SC28 and what did you find?
I have never pulled a set of forks apart that old and not found fishy smelling black oil but then again most of the bikes were high mileage and had leaking seals.
 
#2 ·
Sounds like a valid mystery. The forks on my 99 that I pulled apart (knowing it was abused) came out as expected........DISGUSTINGLY FILTHY. The old grime that was attached to the fork damper was just unreal.

106568


106569


To get a set of SC28 units that appear to have mint oil in it would lead me to believe a few things: 1-forks were replaced at some point (undocumented), 2-oil was recently changed and the records don't show it, 3-the previous owner rode it straight up and down and never hit a pothole lol

On the flip side, finding that is great, less cleaning and worrying for you (y)
 
#3 ·
All back together now and only minimal black dirt found on damper (Nothing like yours).Seals were original Honda and oil was dirtier than I thought when I poured it into a white container.I am still pretty sure the forks have never been cracked before me and the damper rod bolts were seized in the lower leg so bad my impact driver had zero effect on them (30 hours of soaking in CRC did).
I tried 10wt oil first up but went to 15wt against all advice from our local SC28 expert and with the pre load on the 4th ring it suits our shit Australian roads and my 200lbs nicely.
 
#4 ·
106630
Has anyone else here pulled there forks apart on a low mileage SC28 and what did you find?
I have never pulled a set of forks apart that old and not found fishy smelling black oil but then again most of the bikes were high mileage and had leaking seals.
Hello Tubehead. I have two recent experiences of this .......

First response: I bought some Japanese imported 1994/RR-S forks (with compression damping adjuster) to subtly 'upgrade' my '93 bike ;). Sadly, I do not know the donor bike mileage, but I can guess it was around 25 years old and the bronze-alloy fork legs were suffering badly from stone chips, so my guess is that the mileage was high (or it was used off road in a quarry o_O). The dust seals had been removed and the spring clips butchered in what looked like a failed attempt to refresh the forks (no worry to me, since I was replacing all consumables), disassembly revealed that the seals/guides/bushes were Honda; could have been OE or refreshed previously, I do not know.?

However ...... the oil ....... crumbs but it stank ? and you can see from the picture it was pretty 'orrible to look at.
 
#5 · (Edited)
My Second experience: while sourcing & refreshing the above used forks, I stumbled across some NOS Honda OE forks, and well .....:unsure:..... we cannot have enough spare parts, can we ...:rolleyes:... so I bought them too. In the original Honda boxes that were dated 1995, the forks were in bags, but not sealed up but were clearly unused and absolutely pristine :love: - just sat on shelves for 25 years.

I compressed the forks 50x each to confirm that the seals were not leaking, therefore my minimum intention was to check the internal parts for corrosion (none), change the oil assuming that it was very old and then fit them. I didn't take a close up picture of the oil, it was a bit dark (I want to say that it still had a red colour to it) but was still transparent AND did not smell at all (Note: frankly speaking, I did not want to get the smelly oil from the used forks on my hands).

So, I think that I am in agreement with both yourself and Ian: fork oil ages and degrades even further with (ab)use. (y):geek:


106631
 
#6 ·
My Second experience: while sourcing & refreshing the above used forks, I stumbled across some NOS Honda OE forks, and well .....:unsure:..... we cannot have enough spare parts, can we ...:rolleyes:... so I bought them too. In the original Honda boxes that were dated 1995, the forks were in bags, but not sealed up but were clearly unused and absolutely pristine :love: - just sat on shelves for 25 years.

I compressed the forks 50x each to confirm that the seals were not leaking, therefore my minimum intention was to check the internal parts for corrosion (none), change the oil assuming that it was very old and then fit them. I didn't take a close up picture of the oil, it was a bit dark but still transparent AND did not smell at all (Note: frankly speaking, I did not want to get the smelly oil from the used forks on my hands).

So, I think that I am in agreement with both yourself and Ian: fork oil ages and degrades even further with use. (y):geek:


View attachment 106631
That's a pretty cool stand you have the fork leg in (y)
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top