Front suspension advise

[Magician16]

My Bashan Storm only has 1" sag on the front suspension, and it is rather harsh on a big bump. I resurrected the bike and haven't messed with the forks yet, but my Magician had the exact opposite problem which changing the oil to Maxima 15W fixed without having to build preload spacers. I'm thinking the first thing I should do is take them off, check the size of the preload spacers and replace the oil with like 10W. I'm thinking the previous owner had maybe put either too much oil in or too heavy oil.


Am I on the right track?

[TxTaoRider]

Is that 1" sag with you on or off the bike?

[Magician16]

With me on the bike.

[Megadan]

How much fluid was put in the forks? If they are filled too high the forks will become stiff very quickly. The air left in the fork tube after filling actually acts like a progressive spring rate as the fork cycles. The less air gap, the higher that rate increases. Sometimes it can cause the fork seals to simply blow out too.

[TxTaoRider]

I think the storms use the usd forks with only about 6.5" of travel, but even so you should have about 1.3-1.9" (depending on stiction) sag.

As Megadan pointed out too much fluid will make them hydrolock and limit travel. Most modern bikes that use usd forks use lighter fluids than regular forks so you might try using atf which is usually about 5-10 wt.

You might check you front tire pressure as well.

[Magician16]

OK, it appears that I am on the right track, and there is too much oil in them. I still haven't taken them off, but it appears it could be a combination of too much, too heavy oil.

[jasbeth]

I have a Bashan Storm (inverted forks) this works well with the Hawk DLX as well (with inverted forks), I have used this on multiple bikes so far with great results. After multiple changes with oil amounts and weights, then checking travel and rebound. I found this to be best for my bike as well as others, Maxima 15w Race Formula, 280 ml of oil in each shock. This is on stock shocks with no preloads or mods. To check travel, put a tie wrap on the shock tube where it goes into the gold shock body, hit a few heavy bumps (or curb on street) then check/measure your travel how far did the tie wrap move down? Now refill with amounts above, slide tie wrap back up to the shock body, ride over same area as before, now measure the travel. This amount for the bikes I have done will give a softer feel, no harsh jarring from the front end. We have ended up with between 5"-5.5" of travel. This has been our experience, your results might be different. Hope this helps.

[Magician16]

Thanks, Jasbeth, that's exactly the info I was looking for. That's the way I check travel as well. I'm around 200 lbs., so results will vary.

[Spins]

Are there any aftermarket or another brand of forks we can swap over to. My Brozz forks are bottoming fairly easy. I really like my Brozz but the suspension is extremely limiting.

[jasbeth]

Seriously, try the fork oil change listed above, it will help with your issue. If you are dead set on changing your forks, see below.



Here ya go.....Honda XR250L

From Jaysso Lowithertz Admin on FB "The Chonda Riders"

Some of the Information & photo courtesy of another China rider!
So as I’ve mentioned I’m swapping to genuine Honda forks for obvious reasons they’re just more rigid and offer the Tbr7 or hawk more capabilities off road or on for that matter
Here is some of the unknown information
You will need
1: Honda forks & triple clamps
2: the correct Honda front brake caliper
Or you can modify the bracket and use the tbr7 caliper
3: a longer brake line/hose “130cm” link included!
4: different wheel bearings as we can use our front wheel just need bearings that fit the larger Honda axle
5: steering stem bearings
Here’s some links for the correct wheel & steering stem bearings

New wheel bearings that fit the tbr7 wheel to the larger diameter Honda axle!
https://amzn.to/3w33Uey

Steering stem bearings 2 links provided one sets from pivot works others my preferred brand all balls racing IMO both are identical in quality it just depends on what brand you prefer…the pivot works set comes with a tube of bearing grease the all balls set does not but if you have a China bike I’ll bet you have some marine grade-synthetic etc grease on hand anyway
This set or
https://amzn.to/3qvRZVv
This set…don’t need both!
https://amzn.to/3hiiQQr

Honda front brake caliper & pads
https://www.ebay.com/.../Front-Brake.../401810288838...

Replacement longer brake hose
https://amzn.to/3A7tPoG




...

[Spins]

Thanks for the video.

Fork oil upgrade was the first thing I did when I assembled the bike. I drained out what I could and replaced it with Maxima 15W. IIRC I was only able to remove 200ml from each fork. I assembled two Recons back to back and both drained the same amount . This did help firm things up a little compared to my older 18 Brozz.
I’m riding more aggressively now and I’m feeling the short comings.

[Magician16]

Just did my front forks. Holy cow, is the front end better. Jasbeth's amount is right and wt. oil is right on. I've got at least twice as much travel. The right side fork was way overfilled before I changed it.

[jasbeth]

Glad it helped!

[Magician16]

Originally Posted by Spins

Thanks for the video.

Fork oil upgrade was the first thing I did when I assembled the bike. I drained out what I could and replaced it with Maxima 15W. IIRC I was only able to remove 200ml from each fork. I assembled two Recons back to back and both drained the same amount . This did help firm things up a little compared to my older 18 Brozz.
I’m riding more aggressively now and I’m feeling the short comings.

When I worked on my forks yesterday, I had the exact opposite problem. When I drained the forks, there was about 260 ml. removed from the left side and over 300 ml. from the right side. Before the oil change, I had only about 2 1/2" of travel. I didn't ride it hard yesterday, but I was trying to test the travel so hit hard bumps at 20 mph. I got over double the travel and never bottomed out.



My Storm was used when I got it with about 3000 km on it, and I don't know if the previous owner had changed the oil. Whatever was in there looked like used motor oil and was dirty brown.

[Thumper]

Originally Posted by Magician16

When I worked on my forks yesterday, I had the exact opposite problem. When I drained the forks, there was about 260 ml. removed from the left side and over 300 ml. from the right side. Before the oil change, I had only about 2 1/2" of travel. I didn't ride it hard yesterday, but I was trying to test the travel so hit hard bumps at 20 mph. I got over double the travel and never bottomed out.

My Storm was used when I got it with about 3000 km on it, and I don't know if the previous owner had changed the oil. Whatever was in there looked like used motor oil and was dirty brown.

My Storm has a manufacture date of Oct 2020. I haven't looked into the fork oil yet, but the USD forks have full travel, bottoming out without too much of an impact. The lower end has a recessed ~6mm allen bolt just like the ones on the non-inverted forks I've worked on, but no drain port. I always used a mallet-style impact wrench to loosen that since the internals rotate freely when loose. I imagine this will be no different?

I just loosened the cap on the top end to open it up, but it keeps getting pulled inwards (!!) at end of thread travel, as if there is a vacuum inside the tube!

Does anyone have pics of this fork tube disassembly process?
Maybe the spring is holding it by friction (pushed into the cap), and you have to dislodge it??? But that doesn't make sense-too much force on the aluminum cap upon impacts, I'd guess. The spring can't be right up against that aluminum cap!