FE550 Fork Questions

This bike is fairly new to me, I've only made it out on a handful of rides before winter. The handling seemed OK but thought I should dump the fork oil before bothering to dicker with comp/rebound settings.

I just changed the oil in the first leg and compared the action to the other one, no big difference. I was just compressing each leg against the garage floor.

What I find strange is on either leg I can't feel any difference between the fully dampened and least dampened positions (rebound and compression). I know that "pushing against the garage floor" is a lot different that riding the bike, but I still thought fully dampened would feel different (especially rebound). Is that normal?

I was careful to check the rebound adjuster tube and it was able to spring up and down, so I don't think that is stuck.

The other weird thing I found was one leg had 18 clicks of compression adjustment and the other had 34-35. Could that mean something is blocking the compression valve on one side?

Thanks for the help. I don't have much experience suspension components yet.

-Kent (2005 FE550)

I got about 650-700ml out of it and put about the same back in. I suctioned some out to set the level (110mm) after.

When I assembled the rebound tube, the tube just slid down into the cartrdige. Is there a technique for making sure it's seated on the needle properly?

I'm wondering if it's not sitting properly on the needle down there. It moves up and down, but I wonder if it's acutally pushing the needle off to the side instead of down into the valve. Is that possible?

I got the 110mm from the Owners manual. What do you recommend?



Dropping the oil height will bring it closer to 500ml, but I might have also got some in between the inner and outer fork tubes. I'll re-measure.

I wouldn't think that would account for the lack of dampening adjustment though, I'll probably need to open it up and see what that needle is doing.

When you say "treacle", do you mean smooth resistance along the stroke, no air pockets (internets search led me to baking ingredients)? Thanks for the help, Taffy.

I followed Slaven’s video for filling the forks, BUT, I neglected to slide the outer tube all the way up before final measurement. I had oil between the inner and outer fork tubes, so yeah the level was too high. I sucked it down to 120mm. Mystery solved.

FWIW, the right leg was filled to 90mm (from the previous owner) and I dumped out 650ml.

I flushed out the forks with some kerosene and the compression adjuster free’d up a bit. I’m able to get 34 clicks out of it but I think I’ll pull it out because there’s obviously some gunk in there that was keeping it from closing. It’s still a little stiff. The forks are still off so it should be pretty easy I suppose.

Something else I found when I opened up the other leg was the preload shims/washers aren’t the same. One side has 15mm (10+5mm) and the other has 14mm (10+2.5+1.5mm). For a hack rider like me i don’t think that would make any noticeable difference though. With only 350 hours on the bike I can’t believe this bike isn’t in showroom condition! What is the factory configuration for spacers? TFTH guys.

I pulled the compression holder and cleaned it out with some kerosene and compressed air. Clicks nicely now.

Thanks for the tip on compressing the fork to get it in/out, I probably would have struggled with that for a while otherwise.

I'm not going to sweat the preload right now. It might not be optimal (I'm not even sure how big the guy who set it up was) but it's good enough for me and I can worry about that later.

Thanks for humouring me while I turned a 2 hour oil change into a several day suspension lesson!

-Kent