Fork oil change (oil only) done easy?

[stopintime]

I suspect my fork oil has gone bad sooner than I expected 

My impression is that I have lost MUCH of my damping compared to what I usually have.
This is a custom guru 'secretly' transformed S2R800 Marzocchi, so maybe the 10 oil gets unusual punishment through not-so-kind special valve arrangements.... My weight, my riding and climate is certainly NOT kind to any suspension components - although I can't quite understand why the oil would go bad so soon this time when it didn't last time.

Overhaul - bushings, seals and Öhlins 10 oil - done ~5,000 miles ago.

It's not possible to get another overhaul as soon as I need it, so I'm wondering what you think about just changing the oil?

And: is it possible to do it with just removing the cap and go straight to emptying the legs? Pumping the cartridge/slider? Without undoing the spring?

[Speeddog]

Some of the Marzocchi forks are quite possessive of whatever oil is in the 'cartridge'.
You can pump, leave upside down overnight, etc. and they're still not empty.

So you have to refill oil to a specific level, usually done with the springs out, sometimes with spacers in .... depending on whatever....

You'll have to ask what oil level your tuner used, and what spacers in, or not in.

Most likely you'll have to remove the forks, and remove the springs.
But not knowing what all your tuner did inside the forks.... YMMV.

[EEL]

I dont have the weird one side compression and one side rebound style like on the s2r 800 marzocchis but I can attest to the fact that they hold a LOT of oil if they are not fully pumped.

Consequently you cant fill them up properly without pumping them fully either since it's hard to measure mm from top with the spring on

Honestly I don't know how you could pump it without taking off the spring.

[He Man]

Ohlins fork oil is GOOD stuff. Likewise to Racetech oils. Those things have service lives beyond 5k miles for street i would think.

Ive ran Racetech UR2 "whatever the make the beast with two backs too much money for my pocket" in my dirtbikes before and can get a whole season out of them easily. Ive tried the Maxima stuff, maybe 25 hours before its sheared so much , you might as well run water.

AFAIK, there is no way to swap oil without removing the springs.

You can very easily remove the springs without any special tools if you know a dude thats about 6'2" and atleast 220lbs and some strong arms. You can litterally grab the preload spacer and grip it nicely then compress the spring with it to reveal the locking nut. Just go to home depot and buy a washer and cut a slot into it to keep the preload spacer down so u can remove the fork cap. You are probably running something like 1.1kg/mm springs? 1.2 maybe? Thats about the limit of what i think a strong dude can do with the slippery preload spacer. Otherwise, buy a cheap ebay tool and have any old buddy on hand.

I can swap up to 0.55 springs by myself and im a fairly strong guy. I cannot swap 0.89kg/mm springs for the life of me without special tools or help.

Im not faimilar with the s2r800 forks, but is it single spring or double spring? if its single spring, then your spring rate is double your normal rate. thats a 2.0+ kg/mm spring, thats a HEAVY make the beast with two backsing spring.

[oldndumb]

IMO, trying to change the oil without pulling the springs is somewhat foolish. It is not that hard to do correctly.
YMMV 

On this note, I did a unscientific experiment last fork oil change by collecting all the oil in a tub and then let it sit for a couple days to see if there were any contaminants which might settle to the bottom. Wish I had taken pics because there definitely was a concentration of settled particulate. Looking at it, I thought contamination from the seals. Then for the hell of it I ran a magnet through the sludge and was surprised to see a fuzz ball covering the magnet. Cleaned the magnet several times and tried different areas in the tub bottom and got the same results.

My seat of the pants conclusion is that the ferrous particulate was coming from the springs. Smarter folks may have a better theory.

Far as I'm concerned not doing everything possible to replace all of the oil (with the suspended ferrous particulate) is not a a good practice.

[BK_856er]

Shouldn't be any harm in replacing whatever you CAN get to easily, especially since you know the exact type your tuner used.

This would be an interim measure until you can get a full/proper fluid replacement and wipedown and do careful level setting.

That's the problem with no clickers - no way to easily tweak settings as components/conditions change.

Maybe the oil has degraded between your last few changes and accumulated particulates/films/deposits hung up in your "cartridges" are affecting your "stack" behavior assuming there is even a stack in there.  Maybe components have worn and you need to step up the fluid viscosity a little to compensate.

My former guru tuner used to recommend changing fork oil more often than engine oil.

BK

[stopintime]

Thanks guys 

This was about a tiny amount of time, at best, that my dealer had to help me before a next day race. I just wanted to know if the short amount of time could be enough. It turned out they didn't even have that, so I run with it as is. Tune my head and adapt works well enough for now... I foolishly compared my fork with Panigale R and my head started playing mind games.

Winter will show what I 'need' to do 

[He Man]

theres a guy on Thumpertalk who makes the SMART performance suspension components. He says that if you polished the edge of your springs, you will notice a VERY dramatic drop in the contamination in your fork oil.