Hitchcocks Forum

My forks feel over damped so I think someone may have put too thick oil in them. Does anyone know if it is possible to drain the oil without taking the forks out? Bike is a 1961 Meteor Minor

Geoff

Geoff, sadly it isn't really advisable in my experience. You could remove the wheel spindle caps and front wheel then knock the centre of the two studs upwards which will allow the oil to drain (and I think this is suggested in the Workshop Manual, available from our Hosts if you don't have one,) but if you do this there is a good chance the stud will leak and it is a real sod to seal. The alternative is to remove the fork leg assembly complete and turn it upside down to drain. Your choice!

REgards, Mark

MM forks dont have dampening as such, just oil for lubrication purposes. (same forks fitted to some Crusaders)
Do the forks have the Oil level screw? If so place bike on centre stand with the front wheel clear of the ground and top up to suit


10w or 20w hyraulic oil is all that is needed. Anyones guess what it in there already, so it sounds like you will have to strip the forks and wash them out with paraffin first?

Tim, sorry to contradict you but MM forks do have damping built in. The slider is identical in appearance to the Crusader type but is threaded to accept a fork seal, bored for a top bush and has the damper assemblies as fitted to the Bullet and heavyweight Twin forks. If you look at the MM Parts Books on this site they are clearly shown. These forks are very popular in pre65 Trials competition here (although usually with modern internals to further improve damping!) and as a result are very hard to find at Autojumbles. They were also fitted to the Trials Works Replica like the the one I have.

REgards, Mark

Thanks Mark for your advice. I shall ponder my options. Maybe I will get workshop manual first. Maybe also I will try and suck a bit of oil out to assess its viscosity. Don't want to go to all this trouble only to find they are just the same with the recommended oil in there. The forks do compress but they don't seem to absorb the bumps nearly as well as say the forks on my Sunbeam S8

Geoff, because of the design of the damper rod I don't think you'll get a tube down far enough to suck the oil out. If you look at the Parts Book and squint a bit you'll see what I mean! When re-filling try using ATF, I've used it on mine and it's a bit better than 20w which was originally specified.

REgards, Mark

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Hi Geoffrey,

You might find more info from following the link below. Scroll down the page to "Kevin's Corner" and have a look... Nuff said...

RE Misc. Stuff

Thanks. That is a very useful resource

MarkM - Sorry to contradict you, but MM forks in this instance do NOT have damping. Assuming of course that this is indeed a 1961 bike with 1961 MM forks fitted - look at the parts book for 1961 MM on this site for confirmation.

Scaley's mine of info. also features a "Classic Motor Cycle" 2004 article on a 1961 MM Sport which stresses the point that the front forks are UNdamped.

Geoffrey - Hope this helps.

John L, you are quite right, my apologies! On checking I see that from when the MM was introduced in 1958 it had fork damping in every year EXCEPT the last year, 1961. No guessing why they did that! Having said that the undamped fork as fitted to the 250s works very well and it's hard to tell that it doesn't have damping. I suppose the only way Geoffrey can tell which he has is by putting the bike on the centre stand and looking up the stanchion shroud to see if there is a fork oil seal holder on the top of the slider? Either way draining the oil would involve pushing the lower fork stud upwards to drain the old stuff. And of course, there's no telling what's been done to a bike 58 years old!

REgards, Mark