UKC

My son's Specialized Hardrock has really crappy/basic Suntour forks that are starting to squeak really badly. From what I've read, it's likely to be from water getting in and producing some foul gunk that needs cleaning and re-greasing. When I last told a bike shop that I used Castrol general purpose grease on something they nearly had a fit and told me bikes are far too sensitive and that I had to use some bike specific grease hand-squeezed by maidens or whatever. Anyway - it's a cheap fork, so can I just chance it?
Botcher-Frank

In reply to FrankBooth:
Haven't yet had the bottle to do my forks with it yet, but I use Castro LM for everything else ( everything else mechanical, that is....)

In reply to FrankBooth:


If you are going to be greasing around the seals, then you are best to use red grease to protect the rubber. This is a particularly good idea with the cheap suntour kids forks as spare seals can be very difficult to get hold of. Other than that, use anything you want.

In reply to FrankBooth:
What Mountain Bike got roundly criticised once for mentioning using cooking oil inside a certain brand of forks.

The only thing to keep in mind when using grease on other bike parts (than forks), is the density/gloopiness of the grease for how lightweight any internals are, to do with what resistance it might cause for any small/lightweight parts needing to move freely, just a light weight oil is recommended for the internals of SRAM road shifters for example.

http://www.green-oil.net/

Worth buying Green Oil products to help look after the planet though, they're the best out there for being very green and doing a decent job too. Though a good mechanic would probably change any grease a little bit before it's required anyway, if their grease hasn't got gold stars etc on their website from reviews, help to stop any particles/bits suspended in it from causing wear.