Suspension fluid weight

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Suspension fluid weight
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flag jenksy
O+ FL
Posted: Nov 21, 2015 at 14:44 Quote
I just serviced my 2010 Revelations and accidentally put 123ml of 15w oil in the damper rather than 5w.

How will this affect the performance, if at all!? In general what difference does fluid weight make to fork performance?

Cheers,

Tom
flag RunsWithScissors
Posted: Nov 22, 2015 at 9:15 Quote
I doubt it will hurt anything, but you probably will have more aggressive damping with the thicker oil, especially in cold weather. You may be able to compensate by decreasing your damper settings. Generally the thicker the oil the more aggressive the damping effect. I'd be more worried about having oil that's too thin than oil that's too thick.
flag eicca
Posted: Nov 22, 2015 at 14:49 Quote
RunsWithScissors wrote:
I doubt it will hurt anything, but you probably will have more aggressive damping with the thicker oil, especially in cold weather. You may be able to compensate by decreasing your damper settings. Generally the thicker the oil the more aggressive the damping effect. I'd be more worried about having oil that's too thin than oil that's too thick.

This. Thicker oil will generally make everything a little slower. This is actually a common mod for older forks that didn't have the tuning range some people wanted. Harmless but will affect the overall speed.
flag BARAVNZLA
Posted: Nov 27, 2015 at 17:19 Quote
I can't seem to find oil lighter than 10w, would it have the same behavior if I put lets say 110ml of 10w oil instead of 120ml of 5w?
flag eicca
Posted: Nov 27, 2015 at 22:13 Quote
BARAVNZLA wrote:
I can't seem to find oil lighter than 10w, would it have the same behavior if I put lets say 110ml of 10w oil instead of 120ml of 5w?

You'll need to run the appropriate volume or you'll wind up with air bubbles getting sucked through and that'll make your damping suck real quick. Only changing the weight of the oil will change the speed of the damping.
flag jenksy
O+ FL
Posted: Nov 30, 2015 at 3:36 Quote
Results: Rode this weekend and fork does seem to be rebounding slower, even with the dial turned all the way. Maybe it's just in my head after reading eicca's post but seemed good enough for me.

Cheers!
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