Hitchcocks Forum

I decided to change my fork springs for H's progressive springs, I knew I might have a problem when it came to the spring retaining collar but I thought I'd carry on, not wanting to spend £19 on a spanner, well I tried a pair of crescent grips but there isn't enough depth on the collar, stumped , but looking around the garage I saw the locking spanners for my angle grinder hanging up and what do you know the one with the round pegs in was a perfect fit and I mean perfect even the U shape of the spanner was the right diameter, all I had to do was file gently a flat on to each side of the round peg and tap it up on to the collar and voila the collar unscrewed a treat. And the thing is these can be bought for a couple of quid.

While on the subject of forks, I've been checking the forums about what to use as fork oil well there is fork oil, engine oil 10/40, ATF, and I also saw brake fluid, now being the tight O B I am i've got a half can of 10/40 Castrol synth will this do ?

The manual for my Electra X states 10-30 oil in the forks.

I would counsel extreme care when dealing with large springs, several people a year get killed by them.

I think you'll find 10/40 gives you a stiff ride. I tried various oils until I settled on ATF

Thanks I will try ATF and see if it suits, Papasmurf the springs are not under pressure when the forks are off the bike, unlike a Triumph sprung hub I took apart once in a school workshop and bounced all around the room.

ATF has a claimed viscosity of around 5. 10/40 has viscosity of 10 when used cold - as in forks, so not so far apart, give it a try, it won't do any harm.
Just to confuse things, gear oils are measured differently to engine oils - a 90 grade gear oil is similar to a 30 grade engine oil! I think it is to do with temperature at test, but since I don't know how ATF is measured it may be more similar to 10/40 than the numbers suggest. You could try a simple viscosity comparison by timing a set amount draining through a small hole in a container which is the industry method of grading viscosity anyway.

extremely useful guide when comparing viscosity http://www.peterverdone.com/wiki/index. ... sion_Fluid

Thanks for the replies, I find it amazing that a forum like this can throw up some really interesting replies and reveal things one might never know.