soupdragon
Registered user
I've never been 100% happy with the front end on my f700gs, it feels harsh over washboard-type surfaces and bumps. The rebound damping is probably set on the hard side to cope with all weights of riders on all road surfaces at all kinds of speeds. However, I ride mostly two-up at quite leisurely speed on often un-maintained rural roads. My primary need is for comfortable suspension. I toyed with the idea of Intiminators (a bit expensive) and Emulators (cheap but not suitable for plastic damper rods without machining adaptors). So, I opted for the tried and trusted old fashioned 'drilling out and heavier oil' method. The result is that it has certainly softened (that is slowed) the rebound damping and without affecting the compression damping. Rough road surfaces and bumps at moderate speed are less noticeable now. I drilled out the compression holes from the standard 4mm to just over 5mm (13/64th inch to be precise) and put in 12.5 weight fork oil ( Westways Oils - an excellent British family run oil company in the Midlands - available on EBay). There's no noticeable change in brake dive and no bottoming - using no more than 120mm of the fork travel. This method would probably not be beneficial to fast riders seeking a more compliant ride as I imagine the slower rebound would upset the handling at high speeds. This is just my experiment and I am neither suggesting or recommending that anyone tries to do the same. It is however, a well documented procedure and has been adopted by 'garden shed' mechanics for decades as a way of tuning basic damper rod forks to their needs.
