Cartridge Fork Service

[HispanicSlammer]

Here is a link to a very well written and useful site discussing maintenance, disassembly and reassembly of VFR cartridge forks. (You may need to paste this link into your browser.) ?Enjoy! ?Larry

http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~rblander/VFR_forks.html

From the link above, it sounds like fork oil changes should be ?routine. In fact, it sounds like a good idea to change the fork oil twice. First, drain the oil. Then fill and pump the forks, just to get clean oil into the valve stack and pick up any remaining dirty oil, followed by a second draining. Then a final oil fill. Anyone ever do that? Anyone? Beuler? ?Larry

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Fork Servicing

By Miguel Mayo After reading the how to that Larry posted I decided to break out my manual and have a look see, the write up Larry posted covered most VFR except the Fifth and and Sixth Generation (98-03) There are a few minor changes that need to be addressed such as slightly different fork oil.

My 1998 VFR uses 10 weight oil, you can use the Golden Spectro 10w cartridge oil or use the Honda SS-8 brand (10w)

Remove the lower Fairing

Loosen the Handle Bars

This is not too difficult 12mm bolt, you dont need to completely remove it quite yet.

Loosen the top clamp

The top clamp is a large hex key, just loosen don?t remove! Reach under the faring and loosen the lower clamp 14 mm bolt, its hard to reach, do not loosen too much the fork will slide down! Just enough to where you have loosed the initial tension, it is much easier to loosen the bolts now before you jack up the bike.

Remove the front brakes

Remove the left side hex bolts and slip off the caliper

Remove the Brake hoses from the fork

Repeat this on the other side, it has 12mm bolts instead of hex bolts, the brake hoses on the right side are held on with 3 bolts, remove the outer one first to gain access to the inner 2

Jack up the front end and remove the front wheel

Instructions On How To Remove The Front Wheel

Remove the Forks

Once the wheel is removed and the front is jacked up, loosen the triple lower and upper clamps enough to let the forks slide out, be careful here! I labeled them with tape since they have different sliders.

remove the top cap

This was difficult I had to place the fork in a vise and used a large rubber place mat that or a mouse pad, don?t use your wife?s place mats! That?s several divorce points for sure! Clamp it down in the vice and loosen that top cap.

using 2 14mm wrenches loosen the top cap off from the pinch bolt

Remove inner assembly

There is a spacer tube, 2 washers, a concave shim, and a large spring, take note of the spring shape the tight winding goes to the bottom. Dump out the old oil in a pan then remove the cartridge assembly by loosening the hex bolt at the bottom

Remove the Cartridge

Place the cartridge in the pan and pump out the remaining oil.

Make yourself a measuring dipstick

Once the oil is pumped out of the cartridge it should slide easy, replace it back into the fork, then screw it back in with the hex bolt 14 ft/lbs , turn up right side up and begin adding the new oil, you will need 15.5 oz of it in each fork. Don?t pour it all in all at once.

It is best to do both forks at the same time, since the fork oil level should be even for both. (You do this before adding the spring and top assembly back in) Pour in almost all the of the oil in then pump the dampening rod 10 times, make sure the little hole near the top of the rod gets immersed other wise no oil will make it inside the cartridge. Pump the outer fork 5 times too then use your dipstick to measure the oil level 5.1 inches to the top of the fork, (compressed shock measurement) .

Get both oil levels to 5.1 inches and even for each fork

Replace the spring, the 2 washers, the spacer, and the concave shim. You should replace the o ring on the top cap as well, screw it back on the damning rod and tighten it to the pinch rod!

Top screw on the top cap you must compress the fork, return it to your vise and tighten the top cap to 14 ft/lbs slide the forks back into the triple clamp use the measurement in the picture the bottom pinch bolts on the triple clamp must be 36 ft/lbs the top hex bolts are just as tight as you can get

Replace the wheel. Replace the brakes, fairing etc!