I wanted to go back to the stock forks since they have a good spring rate and are fine other than bottoming out. They are progressive springs which I think helps. Anyway, I measured my sag when sitting on the bike unloaded and I found I had nearly 2" of sag. I don't recall the XJ's suspension travel up front but I'll bet that's nearly a third of the travel.
I bought a set of adjustable fork caps from China and finally got around to installing them. They were straightforward other than I had to make new spacers, 1/2" shorter than the stock ones. I could have (and probably should have) cut down the stock spacers but instead, I used some curtain rod I had and made new ones.
Stock spacer is the one on the left:
Getting the forks back together was tough. I had to really push down hard on the caps, while twisting, to get them together. It took lots of pushing, lots of cursing, and some sore fingers to get it done.
Afterward, I adjusted the forks. I run the preload caps down about half-way and the bike now sits at about an 1 1/4" of sag. I don't recall where, but I remember reading that you wanted it around 25% of the total travel. On the XJ, the front travel is 140 mm so 1/4 of that would be 35mm. Does that sound right?
