48mm KYB Open Cartridge Forks - Fork Oil Recommendations - 2003 KX250

Lightning78
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6313
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12/12/2007
Location
Huntington Beach, CA US
Replacing a fork cap on my 2003 KX250 with a jammed and stripped rebound adjuster and figured wile I was working on the forks, it wouldnt be a bad idea to clean the internals and change the fork oil in my forks. I recently bought the bike used with pretty dam low hours and got a great deal on it. I dont know if or when the fork oil was changed so im going to do it myself to freshen it up and establish a baseline for servicing the forks going forward. Service manual from Kawi calls for KYB 01M and im looking for some equivalent oil that would be good to use because that stuff is crazy expensive, my local shop wants $42 a bottle (liter) and online its not as bad at $23.99 for the same bottle. Whats really aggravating is that I would have to buy (2) bottles of oil for only a small fraction needed in the second bottle. This is the same stuff as Yamaha's 01 Fork oil and Enzo's KYB Fork Oil. From what Ive found out, the weight of this oil although not listed is 5wt and I guess there are 2 different types of KYB fork oil, one for my Open Chamber Forks and a slightly different type for Closed Chamber or Twin Chamber forks.

Right now they have a very slight "dead" feel but move well and I think the current oil may be the cause. Looking for any input or recommendations on an alternative brand of fork oil with the fact that my forks are open chamber if thats important.

Im leaning towards the Maxima 5wt fork oil because it comes in Liters and Pints so I wont have as much left over, this is the black bottle with the green label.

The Kawi service manual for a 2003 KX250M1 says that each fork will take 664ml with the oil level set at 130mm which is 22.45oz ..... total ill need 1328ml just under a liter and a pint 1473ml.
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809
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350
Joined
6/2/2014
Location
Paducah, KY US
6/24/2018 1:27pm Edited Date/Time 6/24/2018 1:34pm
Maxima is good. Golden Spectro is what I currently run. If budget is a concern, a lot of people have good luck with automatic transmission fluid. $10 for two quarts. Plus you can also run it in your KX trans so you can have one oil for multiple purposes.
BobPA
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8026
Joined
10/31/2013
Location
PA US
6/24/2018 1:33pm
Bel Ray 5W. There is a big cross reference of different fork oils if you do a bit of google searching. If you go Maxima buy their more expensive stuff

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