Subject: Re: Forks

Author: Rich Marchand

Date: Mar 29, 2003, 4:20 AM

Post ID: 1712427710

Greg,
I have an early Ambo and a 72 Convert. What type of fluid do you

YOUR Eldo? Heavy weight oil?

Scott

I'm getting a lot of mail on this, so here's the answer for you all:

I use ATF because my Eldo has the disc-brake forks with sealed

cartriges (like your Convert does). All it does is lube the sliding

When Maude (the Eldo) still has its drum front end, I used the

generic straight-viscosity 50-weight motor oil I could find. That

meant generic oil for Harleys, since almost no other group has used
straight 50-weight for decades.

Remember, that fork is on a technological level with the Harley

fork of 1949 (and it's no accident that it bears a resemblance,

There are no small damping orifices in it, just a crude forcing

the oil really does is lube the parts, provide some "damping"

viscuous drag, and retard bottoming action as the tube end nears the
forcing cone on the slider. The result is that you don't need fork

with all their special anti-foaming agents. Motor oil works fine and

cheaper.

The best you can do to improve the Ambo fork (short of machining up

of real damper rods for it or replacing it with the later fork) is

in the heaviest oil you can find. In Seattle, 50-weight works pretty

but if I lived in Phoenix, I'd try 140-weight tranny lube (which is

equivalent to 70-weight motor oil).

Hope that clarifies what I originally said.

GF