[Tsquared]

Hi
I rent my motorcycles on https://www.riders-share.com/listing/LLrjsqqrtFpjYCP3j and I leave my motorcycles at Cycle Gear for advertising purposes. I rotate my 2 motorcycles so only one at a time is there. On Friday I switched out my CBR500r for my ninja 650 and I noticed a significant amount of fork oil on the floor. (About the size of a quarter) So I immediately went to the dealership and bought all the seals $88. Now I am looking for a tutorial on how to do it. I find a lot for the older models but mine is a 2016 with 32k miles.

I am trying to find PDF of the shop manual. I hate to ask but if somebody has just the few pages of the fork maintenance that you can upload here, that would be great. Or maybe a YouTube video of fork maintenance that is at least close to the 2016 CBR 500 R.

Are there any special tools that I need?

What oil is used? I see a lot of different online talk about the viscosity.

Any tips would be helpful

Thank you

 

[vt500]

To find the best fork seal tutorial I know of, search YouTube for
"delboy's garage fork seals"
this will answer many questions, show you how to make the tool you need.
Shop manual is a very good idea.
The forks on our bikes are made by Showa, same as many Japanese bikes.

further thoughts
1. Sound's like a pretty big fork oil leak. Are you sure the oil is from your bike's forks? Not a brake leak?

2. With 32K miles, you want to replace the fork bushings while you have things apart. These are the parts the fork tubes slide against. They are fairly cheap parts.

3. I suggest you use the correct Honda fork oil. Not because it is better but because the "weight" of a fork oil is not how to compare different brands of oil. Shock action depends on the fork oil's viscosity, a completely different number. And yes there is a table somewhere on the Internet that compares fork oil viscosity across brands.

 

[McRider]

How is "weight" different from viscosity? 30W oil is often called "30 weight" as a slang term for a viscosity of 30W.

 

[vt500]

How is "weight" different from viscosity? 30W oil is often called "30 weight" as a slang term for a viscosity of 30W.

weight is not a measure of viscosity, although they are often confused.

Viscosity is measured in centistokes (abbreviated: cSt). find this spec on the fork oil manufacturer's specification page for the oil you are interested in. It is usually specified at temperature of 40C.
Looks like: cSt @ 40C

I will try posting a link to a detailed article on fork oil viscosity which explains things better and includes a comparison table of many brands and weights:

Suspension Fluid - Pvdwiki

www.peterverdone.com

you can see in the table that weight and viscosity don't track each other.