76 360 WR venting fork air

Hi.
My Husky has air valves at the top of each fork, a later mod i think . and I have been told that I should periodically vent the air from each fork and have also been told to also never to vent the air ?? can anyone tell me what I should be doing here, thanks.

Vent air, otherwise forks become very harsh and stiff the air gets in through the seals and trapped basically pressuring the fork, some mountain bike forks have a valve for pressurising the forks to accomodate different conditions /riders.

Yes, let the air out when you can remember to. When you do maintenance or before you ride and make sure that the schrader valve closes after , some times mine stay open a lil and oil will seep out. Just take a pocket knife and lift up on the center part and then use soapy spray bottle stuff to check for leaks as you compress the forks.

Those valves are for adding air to the fork, to increase compression and rebound, not for venting.

They might be for adding air on the later Huskys. But on the earlier ones they are for venting as the forks seem to have a habit of pumping themselves up as mentioned earlier. I retro fitted a pair of valves to my 78 390WR as one side seems to pump more than the other. I have tried the black leg forks years ago with air as an assist. The results were horrible ! I did experiment a short while ago again but with the same result. I do have a pair of KYB "Air" forks on the old KLX250. They are superb with 11 psi of air. Un-rideable without !

That was the original intent, but it did not work. Once the fad of adding air wore off people went back to setting their forks up correctly and only used the valves to vent pressure to zero.

You can use air pressure to make the forks stiffer by increasing air pressure inside the fork or plusher by compressing the forks whilst releasing the air from the valves either way as you ride the pressure will change due to air getting in or out through the seals.putting air into the fork also puts extra pressure on the seals.

just adds harshness on the swede forks....much more effective altering oil weight, oil height, and springs

Your mileage may vary...