Fork oil volume low?

PaulMoto6

PaulMoto6

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Hey all, I'm in the process of swapping my forks for R1 forks; just got my stock forks off, and I was curious to see what the oil looked like, so I emptied them out. What's weird is, in one fork, I was only able to empty out 12 us oz, and in the other one, managed to empty almost 14 oz. I made sure to exercise the forks a few times between pour outs....I did this 2-3 times until only drips were coming out. I'm a little alarmed because the manual says to use 18.23 us oz when doing an oil change. Curious if anyone has thoughts, or has experienced something similar? For what it's worth, I do not know if the fork oil has ever been changed on my bike. It's an '07 and I'm the 3rd owner. The fork caps looked pristine though, and the oil that came out was very dark and there were very small bits of metal (which I assume is normal from watching all the dave moss 'fork oil change' vids).
 
In cases like this, and as many other cases as plausible, it's always prudent to suggest the previous owner. :)

Would have been nice to know the oil level from the top in each leg for comparison.
 
Eh, why worry about it? Different forks going on !!!

My honest first guess. The bike took a dirt nap at some point.
 
So I also opened up the R1 forks on arrival and emptied them out to put in fresh oil. And on those forks, same thing, only got 12 oz to come out, and manual says should have 17 oz. So, I added 17 oz. Problem with that was, I was not able to fully compress the fork, so I ended up taking 4 oz out and then it was all good. Very strange.
 
Unless you are doing a complete strip down of the forks, there will always be a little residual oil that "stays". I should probably be more thorough and measure prior to dumping, but I've always put in exactly the same amount that came out.
 
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