Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Changing fork Oil

Hey There-I'm Deborah and have an 03' Speedmaster. I'm not a regular on the site, but use it as an occassional resource.

According to the manual, the fork oil needs to be changed at 16K. It shows you have to take the fork out,it that right. Sounds like a diffcult process.

Has anyone done it?

Thank you

Pulling the forks really shouldn't be all that hard, a motorcycle jack or some kind of stand that gets the front tire completely off the deck would be essential though. One of the hassles though, will be getting the tools to undo the pinch bolts and the axle itself. I ended up using a bolt that had the head as a perfect fit into the LH axle end, along with hex bit sockets for the other side of the axle and the pinch bolts. Once you get the brake calipers un-mounted, the front tire off, and the fender off, then you should be able to loosen the pinch bolts on the triple tree yokes and slide the forks out. If you don't have access to a vice, you'll probably have some problems re-fastening the cap on top of the stanchion after you've changed the oil. You'll also need the little gizmo fork oil measuring tool. It's a lot of stuff, but really shouldn't be all that hard if you access to the stuff you need.

Hey Deborah, glad to see your first post. You may not realize it, but the service intervals have changed for our bikes. About 2 years ago they lengthened the scheduled service from 4,000 to 6,000 miles for standard items like oil changes. This has also effected the longer service items like the fork oil. So instead of every 16,000 miles, it's now every 24,000 miles or 4 years.

Over on Triumphrat.net there's this dealer service sheet that shows all the new service intervals in a PDF document.

Thank you for the updated requirements. now I won't have to change it yet for a while.

Also thank you for the tech information on removing. I looked in the manual and it seems complicated.

Thanks again.

Glad we could help out. It's not as bad as the manual makes it out to be. Really all you need is a good measuring cup, and a wooden dowel to stick down inside the fork to measure the distance from the top of the fork tube to the fork oil once you've poured it in(insert dowel till it dips into the oil. Hold it steady and mark the dowel at the top of the fork tube with a Sharpie. Take out dowel and use a tape measure to measure the distance from the mark on the dowel to where it where it starts to get wet with oil). You don't really HAVE to have all those fancy Triumph tools to do the job.

I'd also recommend you change the fork springs at the same time to some by Progressive Suspension. It'll give your bike a better ride over the bumps, and they'll reduce the dive of the forks when you hit the front brakes. Only costs about $75, worth every penny to me.

Sal: Do you know what model of progressive springs you used. You say $75 for both or each?

Did you replace the rear shocks also? What model did you buy and the price.

Thanks again for your assistance.

Deborah

$75 for both. I bought mine from BikeBandit.com(scroll down to the last item). Bike Bandit lowered their price, only $65.30 plus shipping. Best mod I think I've done to my bike.

Click here for the Progressive Suspension application finder for our bikes.

I put on the rear shocks last Christmas. I got the Progressive 412 heavy duty shocks from Phat Performance Parts, $198.95 with free shipping. the heavy duty shocks are made for for 2 up riding. Others here swear by the 440 series shocks.

Another option are the IKON shocks that Brent sells at newspeedmaster.com.

get them from ma's, i paid like 50 or 55 bucks for mine

Frank

Are you reffering to MAW(Motorcycle Accessory Warehouse)? My only problem with them is their handling costs. They charge 4% of the item's value, or a $4.95 minimum, plus shipping.

I don't know if Phat Performance Parts has the fork springs, but they were definitely cheaper than MAW on the 412 shocks....$198.95 with free shipping compared to $235.95 plus shipping and handling at MAW.