Intruders-Alert

Just replaced the fork seals on my 1985 GV1200GL Suzuki Madura.
No, it's not an Intruder. It just keeps the VS1400 company at night.
Anyways, aside from the muy $pencivo fork oil that's called for in my manual, (Suzuki fork oil #15 = sae 5w?), I'm looking for suggestions on what oil to use as a replacement fluid. Perhaps something you've had success with?
Hence the title, anticipating those who would tell me to drop the extra dimes and get actual fork oil.
Just gonna sit here and wait.
Ben

I don't have any first hand experience with it but I've heard that ATF (automatic transmission fluid) can be used as a substitute for motorcycle fork oil.

ATF works, but you gotta do you research! ATF fluid can eat certain parts of the inner workings of your forks. Can you use it? yeah, you can. Would I? No...


ATF is in common use in the cruiser world do it yourself'ers. But cruisers don't need good suspension, and can probably gt away with not using fork oil or the performance of fork oil. ATF is generally around 10 wt, but that is not consistent at all and will change viscosity with temp. Fork oil is much more predictable.

ATF is not a substitute but a first choice for many cruisers. There is little in an Intruder fork that can be damaged by any oil. I have experimented with engine oil to 90W and none seemed to make that much difference with the agricultural forks of the intruder. I have even used silicone engine additive which was quite nice, but now I am on ATF. Oh by the way ATF is around 40 w Hydraulic oil is good also at 32W

You may be surprised to find that I use palm oil in the clutch hydraulics, cheap and don't rip off the paint, more importantly it is not hydroscopic ( soaks up water). I use it in the car too, my iron slave cylinder rusted out in a year on Brake fluid.
After a while you start to realize that marketing, profit and share holders are more important that what it says on the bottle.

Fred wrote:ATF is not a substitute but a first choice for many cruisers. There is little in an Intruder fork that can be damaged by any oil. I have experimented with engine oil to 90W and none seemed to make that much difference with the agricultural forks of the intruder. I have even used silicone engine additive which was quite nice, but now I am on ATF. Oh by the way ATF is around 40 w Hydraulic oil is good also at 32W

You may be surprised to find that I use palm oil in the clutch hydraulics, cheap and don't rip off the paint, more importantly it is not hydroscopic ( soaks up water). I use it in the car too, my iron slave cylinder rusted out in a year on Brake fluid.
After a while you start to realize that marketing, profit and share holders are more important that what it says on the bottle.

Wow... Amazing!