White spindle oil #60

R100 · Post by **R100** » Fri Mar 27, 2015 10:35 am

I am just guessing, but it sounds like a term straight out of the industrial revolution.

I did some searching and found a few references to "white spindle oil" #60 having a viscosity of 10.
Front forks built in the early '60's were not expecting super miracle expensive fork oil as there was no such thing yet. I recall my Triumph requiring an original Coke bottle (6 1/2 oz.) of motor oil.
These forks don't take much (220cc) so I might go for BelRay fork oil hoping the claim of being good to seals is true.
I have 4 forks disassembled. Very simple (I like simple), a spring and a steel pipe with some holes in it. No Teflon sliders, no rubber at all except the seals, so perhaps motor oil will do just fine.
Has anyone tried #10 fork oil or #10 motor oil?

Hamamatsu Nippon · Post by **Hamamatsu Nippon** » Fri Mar 27, 2015 11:33 am

10 wt is pretty thin, especially for old tech forks. If you want to go that weight, I would use ATF instead of motor oil. Suzuki in the early eighties recommended a 50 50 combination of ATF and 10W30 motor oil. I recently used that in a '82 GS400E and dialed in a nice combination and was quite happy with it. Try that instead.
Speaking of old tech oil, I recall stories in the early seventies of the Japanese using fish oil in the forks. A dealer would commonly drain the forks and resupply with a better oil when assembling the bike.
Getting back to white spindle oil #60, I googled it and found they still make it, but I think it has a different application today.

Offered spindle oil is a high purity white mineral oil fraction, which is colorless, odorless and inert. This spindle oil is basically used in chemical Industry, agriculture, food Industry, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, polishing, food preservative etc.

cknight · Post by **cknight** » Fri Mar 27, 2015 5:22 pm

In the early CB steel lower, and the later aluminum lower version forks, I've had good results with 10 wt. fork oil. Have used both Bel Ray and Maxima. Usual street riding, and I weigh about 170 pounds. Regards, Chase

R100 · Post by **R100** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 6:26 am

Well there's a couple of things to try.
10w30 with atf, and my old standby Belray #10.
With past bikes I have always started with Belray #10, and gone from there, but the oldest was 1987.
At least with 220cc forks experimentation will be inexpensive.