i know everyone already knows about this but i figured it'll go good in the new chassis forum. basically what it is you are doing is draining the stock weight oil (10) from the steering damper and adding a heavier weight oil to firm it up to your desired level. what you do is unbolt it from your bikes forks and remove the drain plug with a torx key. move the plunger in and out slowly to dump out all the old oil. then you have to find out what oil you want to fill it with. most people go with 20 weight fork oil or under for the street and a little higher for the track. i personaly use 25 weight with good results on the street. its definately harder to move and steer the bike at low speeds but its much more stable at higher speeds. the oil is cheap so you can get a few different weights and keep changing them till you get the feel you want. a trick i found when filling them is to totally submerge the damper in the oil and use the plunger to suck up the oil. its definately messy and kind of wastefull but it takes forever to fill it with a turkey baster or what have you. Once you are sure you have all the air bubbles out put the torx bit back in, clean it up, and go for a test lap. just be aware that if you go to heavy of a weight to fast it'll take a sec to get used to the bike. if you dont like it just change it to another oil. i hope this helps someone out their thats to cheap like me to go and drop a couple hundred on an ohlins when the stock will work just fine with a little tuning.

Thanks for the write up. I always wondered though if you completely fill a fixed volume cylinder with for all intents and purposes a non-compressible fluid what happens when the damper is worked thus creating friction and heat. Does the fluid need space to expand? I want to do this as well but I am a bit hesitant for this reason or the exact opposite, I may think I filled it enough when in fact it may not have enough volume.

i left a tiny, tiny bit of air in it the first time i did it and i could feel it every once in a while so now i fill it completely. thats why i submerge it and pump it. i believe the properties of fork oil are heat and cold resistant unlike motor oils which change viscosities as temp changes. ive used motor oil in my damper before and could tell any difference performance wise but after i thought it out i switch to fork oil because i live in an ever changing climate area. i dont think the damper sees so much stress as to cause a high enough temperature to cause the oil to thin out. i believe the internal valving remedys all problems associated with expansion and contraction at a uniform rate.

For the most part the damperwill not generate a noticable amount of heat, so you do not need to worry about the viscosity changing. Think about it, the damper is only going to move less than 1-2" at most while riding, and this motion is not continuous. The thicker the oil, the sooner the damper will start to leak though.