CB350 fork oil

[ducmeister]

Hi all,

Project cb350 is underway. I've pulled the forks to bits and am wondering what weight fork oil to put back in. The original oil was woefully under damping and was in pretty ordinary condition.
I weigh approx 85-90kg with all my gear on.
Any ideas would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Rob.

 

[Haysie]

Rob,

My Honda CB/CJ 250 & 360twins 1973 to 1977 manual says between 135-140cc of ATF (automatic transmission fluid) or fork oil. I would imagine that for your model would not be much different.

Good luck with the project, keep us up to date.

Steve

 

[ducmeister]

Thanks.

The manual says 200ml of 10-30 motor oil is standard. I'd prefer to use fork oil coz I guess it's made for forks (yeah, I know it sounds dumb) but I know that different weights of oil mean different rates of damping and that can also be affected by my weight. Just trying to get some ideas on where to start.

Cheers.

 

[Haysie]

Reading through the manual, it doesn't say anything on weight of oil, I guess they leave that up to the individual.
Have you started a build thread yet?
Steve

 

[ducmeister]

G'day Steve,

No, no build thread yet. Having studied a lot of these sites and forums I've seen a lot of build threads that just seem to peeter out with no result. I'm tempted to just leave it all until it's finished then dump it all on a thread in one go.
Guess that sort of defeats the purpose of a forum in some respects so I may yet be convinced otherwise.
Not much to show at this point though.

Cheers,
Rob.

 

[liam]

from memory 10 was standard, and i think 15 was a good place to start with different weigts, then work your way up.

 

[ducmeister]

Thanks Liam. I'd guessed at about 15 so I'll give it a go and see what happens.
I'm currently waiting on fork seals. I made the mistake of going to a reputable large bike shop with several branches around Melbourne who had them when I called but didn't have them when I went there, then got them in so I went there again only to find that they were not the right ones so I'll be going back for a third time to get my cash back.
Can get the right ones on line for $3 more delivered. So much for supporting the locals.
Might have a look at getting that build thread started soon.

Cheers.