When you talk to John, ask him about Oil wt.
Problem we had was we blow out the seals.
John will talk to you about the type of seals are bike comes with also.
It's a free call.

 

Call John, it's free. He will talk to you about oil wt.
We also had the problem of Blowing out the seals.
He will talk to you about the different seals and the ones he puts in

 

I just had my 2007 reworked front and rear by Dave at

www.fastbikeindustries.com

Dave has a very strong relationship with Ohlins USA as his shop is right around the corner from their headquarters. They dyno tested the stock set up and then custom built Ohlins internals for front and rear. The bike is now very well balanced, unlike the stock see saw.

I just spent a week in Utah beating it up and it worked amazingly well.

They have already done the homework and have it dialed in. I would highly recommend them.

 

I have been working or messing with my suspension.

First I have been adjusting the rear shock. One day just to see what it does, I screwed both compression and rebound all the way in. Went around the block. I didn't even make it back and stopped because it was beating me up. I turned the rebound screw out one click and the bike went UP. So they work.

Another time I had a former road racer drive my bike. He put the rebound at 5 clicks. I think its a little too much so I am trying 6. Compression is in the stock setting of 16 clicks. I will try it in a few.

Next was the front. He bounced the forks, I turned screws. In the end, all the way in or all the way out made no difference at all. I am looking at the gold valves. Are there other brands besides race tech?

David

 

It sounds like you like to ride the bike on the aggressive side. I have revalved many KLX forks and shocks using Race Tech Gold valves, and have gotten very good results. But honestly, if you really want a great front end you need to do the KX fork swap. The rear shock can be made to work very well with a complete internals swap(Gold Valves). I did those mods to my own personal bike and I can clear a 45 ft. double without drama and tackle the nastiest off road junk without visiting the ER.

 

If you are shipping things around the country anyway, I'd recommend John at Moto Pro. He's obviously an experienced and very capable suspension expert.

I had mine done by a local fellow for Pro-Action Suspension. He'd never done an 09, and agreed to do the labor for no charge. I'm happy as a clam with the result. MUCH better sharp hit movement. Ended up with .44 front springs and a 6.0 rear, with internals that actually allow fluid to MOVE! 5 wt oil, 95mm oil level, 10 clicks. But, that means nothing if you don't have the same internals. I'm 185 plus gear and tools.

It's such a nice riding bike now, and the Cobra seat is just the right width, so I'm ordering a Bill Blue Big Bore! Wanted to make sure the bike was worthy of the extra money...I truly believe it is, now that I have a nice suspension.

 

A good start is some fresh new oil. The stuff that is in there is like stringy syrup, especially if the bike has any time on it. Some new 5w and the fork comp clickers will be tunable, which should be done riding, never felt a whole lot pushing on the forks. With thin oil I'm about 8 on forks for all around riding.., but have had it in to 4 in whoops experimenting, and out to 12 on the road. Problem is, the tighter you run the comp screw in, the worse the high speed dampning gets. So washboard gravel roads can be harsh. When you get some thin oil in there at least you can clicker to the ride your on.

The rear shock doesn't have a HS adjustment so like the fork you have to compromise tune the comp per ride condition. The biggest thing that kills the lack of HS on the shock is people have the spring wound up tight. This can make the shock slow to react on the small fast hits and is hard to tune around with the clicker.

 

[QUOTE=RimBender;432727]A good start is some fresh new oil. The stuff that is in there is like stringy syrup, especially if the bike has any time on it./QUOTE]

I saw that advice somewhere else too. Some racers apparently change fork oil every 20 hours!

In my case, I guess I would benefit changing it on my bike, I have nearly 10,000km on it, 90% riding hard in trails. That amounts to over 250 hours.

In reality, I don't have enough experience to judge my suspension, my KLX is the first and only one motorcycle I ride in trails. So, not knowing anything better, I find it adequate. I'm on the light side at 150 pounds, so the stock springs are ok, according to info seen on that subject. But, reading on this forum that the shocks can be improved a lot, I may take the plunge and upgrade the valving system in the future, even though I have no idea how that will affect my riding.

Anyway for now, I am contemplating changing the fork oil, just for the sake of knowing that my bike is in good condition. Anybody know where to find a good tutorial or step by step guide on how to do that?

 

Ray, I like the factory manual for any indepth work on these bikes. And often when they show or describe the use of a "special tool"...like the fork oil level device...more often than not there's another method that works just as well...like a vernier caliper stuck down the throat of the fork tube.

Suspension is a funny thing, and it's often quite subjective and even preferentially driven, but the KLX is somewhat notorious for main compression valves that don't flow enough oil, and that's just something that can't be totally overcome without revalving. Stock fork oil is 5W. One could go to 2.5W to help quite a bit with poor oil flow during compression, but the rebound is not adjustable and in fact is sealed up even if you do a revalve job on the internals. So, you end up with too fast a rebound and a nicer compression performance. The stock rebound stack seems to work well as is with 5W oil, so fixing the compression piston and shims is the best fix...but...the bike is still rideable as it is with proper springs to fit your needs. Just don't ride someone's that's been revalved. It'll ruin you.

 

You need to ride it.

You can't tell from bouncing it up and down in the shop.

I did seals on mine a few weeks ago, and mixed Belray 5W, and 10W together to get a 7.5W oil. I have the same forks on my KDX. They work well with 5W, and there's about a 70lb difference, so I thought running a little heavier oil was worth a try.
I didn't know whether to expect much difference, and was prepared for it to be too slow, and not work at all.

The difference was huge. To be fair, the right side had been leaking for a while, so there may not have been much oil left in there, but the difference in cornering stability is unbelievable, and rough sections that used to bounce me around are now soaked right up.

It could have to do with just getting the stock oil out of there, but for the amount of work involved, I think it's worth trying the 7.5W.
It worked so well, I'm probably going to put 7.5 in the KDX now, since I'm running a lot of compression on the clickers.