[kiko]

I have tried to drain the fork oil on my other bikes by removing the drain bolt on the bottom of the fork leg. Either the drain bolt would not break free with a hand held wrench or it would just spin as it is connected to the cylinder inside the fork. I had to remove the forks to remove the drain bolts since I needed an impact wrench to pop the drain bolts loose. And then again an impact wrench to snug the bolts tight. In my experience, you may get lucky with a hand held tool to remove and reinstall the drain bolts, but it did not work out that way for me.

I change my fork oil about twice a year when my forks start feeling spongy. I support the moto in the front off the ground with a hoist, pull the wheel and brake, loosen the yoke top bolts, loosen the fork tube caps, loosen the bottom yoke bolts, drop the tubes, remove fork va!ve caps, springs, spacers, washers and then turn the tubes upside down to drain. Once in a while turn them up and pump a few times then repeat draining. Then I dump about 200 ml of mineral oil in each tube to flush out more impurities and repeat. Then refill tubes and reinstall. Be sure to pump each fork leg several times to remove all trapped air.

There is a great thread here where you can download the service manual. It takes me about 2 beers/2 hours to refresh the forks.

Good on you for doing your own work. Reminds me of the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Mantenance.". Pirsig

 

[kiko]

I thought about the oil change a bit more and I thought about putting slim hose inside and pumping the old oil out of the forks. -It's procedure commonly done in cars with engine oil. For sure It's not gonna be as good as proper fork maintanence however, better than nothing. What do you think about this idea? Should I go for pumping or removing the "drain" bolt?

Cheers!

You could probably find a large syringe at a vetinarian supply store. With some vinyl tubing you could extract the fork oil, then flush with another light oil, then fill with fresh. Just pump the forks a lot to expel air and bubbles in between changes. Buena suerte.

 

[kiko]

Kojiiro is right absolutely about getting the oil height correct. A few mm off makes a substantial difference..