Boxxer oil service

whowantstobecoolanyway

I have some 06/07 boxxer race forks and have read a number of articles about the left leg stansions wearing due to a lack of oil and i want to change it, i've tried the sram manuals but its not very clear, my question is

Should I service the oil in both legs or just the left, and what weight oil and how much in each leg?

nicklouse

the volumes and wts are in the service manual if you are going to service it do both legs.

oil volume weight chart http://www.sram.com/_media/pdf/service/oil_chart.pdf

Dangerous Dave

With the 06 onwards Boxxers, you get a semi open bath system, which basically means that the damping oil and gubbins are all sealed in the stanchion, so inside you get a bung at the bottom of the stanchion that seals the oil and stuff off from the rest of the fork. As it isn't a true open bath and you don't have oil sloshing around freely inside the whole fork, you need a small amount of oil in the lowers just to lubricate the stanchions as they pass the bushings inside.

So, you can remove the stanchions and clean out the lowers without having to change the damping oil, then grease the seals and replace the stanchions back in the lowers without having to go inside the motion control.

Once you have cleaned up the lowers, (spray with degreaser, and shove a cloth in there to wipe up the muck - make sure it's not a cloth that leaves bits of itself behind) put some suspension grease on the inside of the seals and carefully insert the stanchions, taking care not to stretch or damage the outer seal.

Then just before you put the bolts back on the end of the damping/spring rods, pour some 15wt oil into the lowers (with the fork upside down) I think it's about 5-10ml in there. I hardly ever measure it, I'm fairly good at guessing but be carefull not to overfill it or you'll find you wont get full travel out of the fork.

whowantstobecoolanyway

Do i need to put oil into both the legs at the bottom or just the right as the above sram oil chart says none in bottom left leg?

Dangerous Dave

Strange. It says not to? Does it actually say “do not put oil in there”?
I would say you’d still need some in there for lubrication of the bushings, as all you’ll get in the spring side is grease on the actual spring to stop it from making too much noise and to stop it from causing any resitance.
It may say none in bottom leg because it makes no difference, that side is open bath; oil can go from lower legs to stanchion...

whowantstobecoolanyway

It doesnt say not to, it just has an X in the table for oil weight and volume for the bottom of the left leg opposed to the 15ml and 15wt quoted for bottom of right leg.

I would have thought it would be OK to put in both legs, i'll probably do that?

Dangerous Dave

Just had a look: It says 30ml in the top leg for Team/Race models - as I said before, the spring side (left) is open bath. So any oil you pour in whether it's from the top or the bottom will slosh around the whole fork,so lowers AND uppers

whowantstobecoolanyway

So basicaly i can just put the 30ml into the bottom of the left leg?

thanks for the help dave

Dangerous Dave

It doesn't matter where you put it in the spring side, because as I said, it's all open, so if you put it in the top, it'll drain down to the bottom, and if you put it in from the bottom, it'll still just slosh around the whole of the fork, from top to bottom.

It's just the damping side that has the sealed off stanchion, so oil in the lowers, will always remain in the lowers.