The Hodaka Club Forum

Am changing fork oil, what is the oil capacity and are there any special procedures?

Hello, this is Bruce Young of Hodakaparts.com IDAHO, I will try and answer you questions,
First the capacitie in each fork leg is 135cc, you can use any brand of Motorcycle specifc fork oil in those forks, it would be available at you local M/c dealer. As long as its a M.c brand.
I would suggest you buy 10 wt oil. 5 wt is way too lite for Hodaka use unless you have fine tuned the forks and are using them for racing.

Now I would suggest that you try and find a Hodaka manual to follow for the rebuild. The best place for those is Stricly Hodaka. I will try and tell you how to do it, but be very careful. Always use metric tools for bolts and nuts. The fork legs are almn, so they scratch easy and you don,t want to do that, so take precations.

First remove the front wheel assy, noting where everything went before you started the process. When you remove bolts put them back in place where they where so you won,t lose them and they will right there when you go back together. If needed mark things.
Now once the frt whl is removed, you can go to the top of the fork legs and find the two large bolts at the top of the forks, becareful and remove them. Next ,right below them there are pinch bolts, in the top handle bar plate, loosen the bolts, now go down the fork to the lower steering plate, there you will find two more lower pince bolts holding the fork tubes in place. Loosen those as well. If you are very lucky and most of the time the fork tubes can be removed with out much effort, they slide to the bottom out of both plates. Once out, drain the old oil out of the fork legs, be careful the make sure you keep an eye on the fork springs, they can slipped out as well. There is a small screw at the bottom of each leg that can be removed and a complete draining can be acheved. Now its time to clean the forks, use a cleaning fluid other than gasoline. Available at you local Napa store. If you are not replacing the fork seals you can reverse everything back in place and refill the fork legs with the springs in them to the capacitie listed before. If removing and replacing fork seals I suggest you get the manual to follow specific instructions, it can be very tricky the first time and much damage can happen when trying to use improper tools to pull and replace the seals. If you have not done it before, take it to you local m/c dealer and let them put the seals in the tubes. If you do decide to do them, be very carful.

Last but not least recheck all bolts and nuts for proper tighting, before you ride the bike.
Its really not hard, but can be a little tricky the first time. Take your time and be careful as to how everything came apart and went back together.
Good Luck,

If you need more help the forum has a tech section that gives more info on the procedure.
Bruce Young Hodakaparts.com IDAHO

Everything Bruce said, plus:
If you're replacing seals, use some heat and use a seal puller - not too tough a job compared to some other types of forks.
If you're not replacing seals and only changing the oil, you can just drain the forks still on the bike (using the lower drain bolt at the bottom of the fork).
If the drain bolt has seized to the damper rod, some heat and sometimes a bit more compression (spring against damper) will help. Worst case, an air impact gun will get the job done.
Personally, I like 20wt or 30wt on those forks.
If swamp water drains out of the forks, consider seal replacement and disassembly for a thorough cleaning.
Oh yeah, and get a manual
Have fun!
-Laurie