Fork Oil Capacity amd Weight for GS250T

[Guest]

Hey team, awesome website full of great info, but I'm having trouble finding what I need. (Full disclosure, I did a few keyword searches and have spent about 30 minutes looking through responses...)

I'm rebuilding a set of forks off an 1981 GS250T, but don't have any shop manuals, and can't find any info online.

Does anyone know how much fork oil, and what weight, is recommended for a 1981 GS250T?

FYI, for those thinking about suggesting it....I'm not interested in buying a shop manual. I just need this one piece of info for a project I'm doing (swapping a set of GS250T forks onto a 1979 Yamaha DT175...)

Thanks in advance!!!

[Nessism]

10 weight.

Remove springs, collapse front end, and fill oil up to within 6" of the top of the forks. That will be fine.

[adammtb]

10 weight.

Remove springs, collapse front end, and fill oil up to within 6" of the top of the forks. That will be fine.

Thanks for the reply.

Forks are currently mounted on bike and I'd prefer not to take them off again.

Anyone have any specs on the actual amount specified? I want to just pull the upper caps off and pour fluid in....

[steveb922]

I have the manual in my workshop - will check tomorrow, if no-one else replies.

[Nessism]

Thanks for the reply.

Forks are currently mounted on bike and I'd prefer not to take them off again.

Anyone have any specs on the actual amount specified? I want to just pull the upper caps off and pour fluid in....

You don't have to take them off the bike to do what I outlined.

[adammtb]

You don't have to take them off the bike to do what I outlined.

I know. But i have to pull the handlebars off because they cover the area that the spring would need to come out the top of the fork tube, and I have a wicked custom tank on the bike I don't want to scratch.

So, rather than pull springs, move handlebars, remove tank etc., or remove wheel loosen triples, slide fork tubes out, I just want the volume specified from the service manual.

Thanks for trying to help, but that's not what I need.

[chuck hahn]

make your own juice. 50/50 mix of straight 30WT oil and any brand ATF fluid. Way cheaper than the fork oil over the counter...and yes this is stated in many Japanese service manuals.


EDIT.... I have an old Stabil bottle and use the ounce lines to mix my juice in.

[fbody_mike]

Fork oil #15, 150 ml each.

[sharpy]

its all in a genuine manual you should have. From basscliffs website

[cowboyup3371]

No matter how much fluid is supposed to be there you won't get an accurate picture of what you actually have without following the procedure Nessism outlined.

[steveb922]

http://gsarchive.bwringer.com/mtsac/~cliff/storage/gs/GS250T-300LZ_manual-82.pdf

[Steve]

Simply adding a quantity of fluid only works when the inside of the fork tubes is absolutely dry, as in right after a rebuild. Any time you drain oil, you don't get all of the oil out, so you don't know how much is left, so simply adding oil might result in too much oil.

You say you don't want to remove the caps, which will require removing the handlebars. How do you expect to add oil if you don't remove the caps?

The PROPER way to determine how much fluid is pretty much as Nessism said, fork off the bike, held vertical, spring removed, measure the level. If you don't want to remove the tubes from the bike, you still need to remove the springs and allow the forks to compress to get a level. By making a tube with a depth marker on a syringe, it's easy to get both levels exactly the same and is not much more effort than trying to cobble something that would avoid removing the handlebars.

.

[RichDesmond]

Thanks for the reply.

Forks are currently mounted on bike and I'd prefer not to take them off again.

Anyone have any specs on the actual amount specified? I want to just pull the upper caps off and pour fluid in....

Takes 10 minutes to pull the forks.

As someone used to say, "Half-assed methods lead to half-assed results. If that's what you're happy with, press on.".