The Benefits of Vacuum and Fork Oil Gauges

Motorcycle gauges are incredibly useful instruments that can tell you a lot about your engine’s state. While most riders are familiar with tyre pressure and oil pressure gauges, there are a couple more types that aren’t as popular as these two, yet can play a huge role in helping you maintain the optimum performance of your bike. In this article, I’ll talk about two less popular types of gauges that are extremely useful for maintaining your bike’s engine and handling – the vacuum and fork oil gauges.

Motorcycle Vacuum Gauges

Even though vacuum and fork oil gauges aren’t familiar to many bikers, they can still be easily found online and in motorbike gear Australia stores around the country. Without further ado, let’s get into explaining the purposes and the benefits that vacuum and fork oil gauges offer.

The purpose of the vacuum gauge is similar to the purpose of doing a cylinder leak down-test, except, vacuum gauges do the task much easier and quicker, allowing you to see whether your engine is healthy or not in a matter of minutes. Checking your engine’s vacuum every now and then will tell you a lot about how your engine is doing. All you have to do is start the engine and let it reach operating temperature. Then, connect the vacuum gauge to a vacuum port on your intake manifold. Once you’ve done that, you’ll see a steady reading at idle with the throttle closed. If your engine is healthy, the reading should show between 17 and 22-inches of mercury (Mg).

A steady and high vacuum reading means your engine is in pretty good shape. However, if you’re at altitude, the readings on the vacuum gauge may be slightly lower (about 1Mg lower for about every 300m). A low reading typically indicates that you have poor oil or piston rings. You can identify a sticky valve when the reading drops from the normal parameters by about 4-inches of Mg. You can identify a burnt valve when the reading drops from the normal parameters by about 6-inches of Mg, and then returns back to normal in a cycle.

Motorbike Fork Oil Gauges

The fork oil gauge, on the other hand, is used to set the oil heights when rebuilding your bike’s forks. Fork oil gauges can also be used on bicycles that have front suspension. This instrument takes the guesswork out of setting the right amount of fork oil volume and level. The fork oil level and volume are important for the suspension balance of your bike, which if isn’t set right, can lead to poor handling, which can then lead to you losing control and confidence in the feel of your bike. For that reason, having the right oil volume and level on both of your bike’s forks is very important, which makes the fork oil gauge one of the most underrated bike instruments. Just like vacuum gauges, you can find fork oil gauges in motorbike gear Australia stores rather easy.