[Glen.Irven]

Looking at refurbishing the front forks?

The front is very soft and and progressive springs not so easy to get hold of.

Any tips and advise would be great

 

[longdistancerider]

Interesting that the front springs are 2 pieces, I'd guess that one is stiffer than the other. Looks like CMSNL has 4 of each upper and lower. There is the option of switching to a single spring. If your springs match up with the specs in the FSM then they are still good, replacing them won't change anything. Honda did use light oil in the forks most of the time, your spec may read as ATF which is roughly 7-8W oil. You can switch to 10W or 15W fork oil which will slow the shock action giving a stiffer front end. In many cases the soft front end is attributable to low oil and very old oil, it's supposed to get changed on a regular basis, @2 year intervals for most riders.

 

[dtsmjr8dan]

The front springs on my 81 CM400 had the two spring style with a washer between them. The PO put an extra piece of pipe to 'preload' the springs to make them stiffer. He must have been super strong. Without his extra 'spacers', it still took some pressure to get the top caps back on. I measured the total length of the two without his spacer and they were in spec, so I left the spacer out. It's not on the road yet, so I can't comment on performance.
In the bottom of this picture is the 'spacer' and washer he added.

 

[longdistancerider]

The spacer was probably for setting the front spring sag Suspension and Springs
Hadn't thought about RaceTech, they may have springs for this model