John, a couple of things we used to do for those forks, still do the first one for all fork seals I replace today,
With any seal, we took the tension spring out of the seal, "unscrewed" it, and cut about 10 coils iff the square end, then, twisted it back together. Tightens up the seal lip to the tube, while not increasing stiction/friction, helps keep the seal alive.
Those steel forks used bushings on the bottom of the tube, and top of the slider, and, they can wear fairly badly, making for the tube to not stay straight in the slider. From time to time, if needed, I have made inserts to tighten up the upper bushing if it has too much play.
Oil level, we used to put a set volume of oil into the fork tube, pump the system up, extend the tube assembly, and bring the level to one inch above the top of the damper rod where the spring sits. This way, we didn't pump all the oil out of the damper area, into the spring, and didn't lose damping on really tough terrain.
Oil itself, we used engine oils in the forks, not special fork oils, never had a problem, never blew a fork seal when we did the above. KMC (Kawasaki Motors Corp, U.S.A.) used to list engine oil use in front forks eons ago, still works for me today.
Just stuff from 40 plus years ago, that still works today.
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