No wonder my forks felt strange

[JCW]

I was asking yesterday about revalving some WP 43mm forks that were on a low hour 2000 250MC that I bought as a spare bike and to play with. I noticed that the front end really deflected sideways off of everything hard that it hit (although the motor and tranny were excellent).

After closer inspection, I discovered that one of the after-market fork bleeder valves had a crack and was not holding any pressure inside of the fork. I took the forks apart today and one side had 0mm preload and the other side had 3mm preload. One side had 135mm oil level and one side had 120mm oil level. Let's review: 1 not holding internal pressure, one with no preload, and one with more oil. I think that might explain some odd deflection issues.

Everything is matched perfectly now and new oil is installed so hopefully the bike will track straighter on bumps. From this point forward, I think I will ALWAYS service the forks on used bikes just to see what is going on. It might take an hour or two, but you may save a lot of frustration.

Hopefully, no revalving will be necessary after all.

 

[widebear]

I guess the previous owner is still wondering why he allways had a film of oil covering his goggles

 

[JCW]

I took the bike out today after correcting the problems and servicing the forks. They are excellent now and it tracks perfectly on all bumps. At first I thought the shock was harsh, but I think it's really the brick hard seat. I think a soft seat will fix this bike without having to revalve the suspension.