Fork oil

jsisidore

Suspension forks are new to me as is their maintenance so right now I'm looking for the right oil which is 5 and 15wt, but what does wt mean anyway? I ask this because Halfords sells 5w30 oil for motorcycle forks, is this the same?

iwilldoit

No you want suspension fluid/oil not engine oil, suspension oil comes in many grades so you need to buy a 5wt and a 15wt if that's what the manufacture recommends.

sniper68

WT=Weight or Viscosity.
You need the correct WT.
Motorcycle fork oil is much "heavier" or in other words the viscosity is thicker.

jsisidore

ibbo68 wrote:

WT=Weight or Viscosity.
You need the correct WT.
Motorcycle fork oil is much "heavier" or in other words the viscosity is thicker.

Thanks. Google directs me to chainreactioncycles as usual. But I wish Halfords would had it as it is a few blocks away.

figbat

ibbo68 wrote:

WT=Weight or Viscosity.
You need the correct WT.
Motorcycle fork oil is much "heavier" or in other words the viscosity is thicker.

No it isn't. Motorbikes commonly take 5, 10 or sometimes 15. Fork oil is very simple stuff and one area where I would use whatever I could get at the right viscosity. But yes, don't use multigrade engine oil.

The Rookie

5w30 is an engine oil.

Motorbike shops will often have supplies of 5,10 and 15wt oil, in fact when I recently bought some 5wt he said 'I bet that's for a mountain bike, it's all we sell it for these days'!