Suspension Servicing

nicholas_yiu

It's my first post here but been reading these forums for a while.

Anyway, today, I ventured into servicing suspension.

I bought some rockshox psylo and a handsomedog Talisman frame (1.9kg steel frame) off ebay a few weeks ago to upgrade my bike and only just got round to playing around with them.

Upon inspection, the oil is black and the viscocity was a bit like water. The dust wipers are also leaking slightly. So time for a service. I took them to my LBS but they don't do suspension servicing and also strongly recommended me to get a professional to do it for me.

I then read the servicing manual and it doesn't look too bad, and it'll only cost £20 in parts instead of ~£70 if I get someone to do it for me. I also thought it can't be any harder then rebuilding an engine.

First I drained the oil from the forks:


Not good, looks like the oil is as old as the forks and I probably need new o-rings as well (another £20 ).

With the forks completely striped and cleaned:


Surprisingly, the o-rings are like new when I took a close look, these forks probably spent most of its life in the garage and probably the reason for the lack of servicing.

When I looked for replacement dust wipers, I thought I might as well get Enduro ones from America as OEM ones cost the same even with the shipping cost taken into account.



After a couple of hours, and fork oil everywhere in my room, the forks are back together, working better than ever.




Tips:
Do suspension servicing yourselves, it's not that hard
Rolson circlip plyers are cheap and nasty
Wear safety glasses as you will spray oil into your face at some point

Now, can't wait to swap the parts from my old bike then going for a ride in Swinley Forest on Saturday

Marjory Stewart BAxtor

fantastic advice. thanks a lot for posting that.

If you find a spare set of mantiou super splices with lock out, do the same and publish a step by step!

stumpyjon

Just watch out if you're planning to service Fox forks, they provide incredibly detailed instructions online and you can buy the seals and wipers easily but the couple of specialist tools you need are like rocking horse sh1t. I gave up trying to source them and let my LBS service my Talas RL's. Only cost £ 40 in the end and that included sorting out the TALAS adjust I'd messed up.

Marjory

have you looked here for a service guide?

http://www.manitoumtb.com/serviceguides.asp

cjw

Stumpy. What tools are the problem? I am going to be servicing my Fox 100 (admittedly diferent to Talas), but couldn't see any nasties in the service guide ... just need a big hammer

stumpyjon

For the TALAS forks you need a TALAS IFP Charging Tool (FOX P/N: 803-00-127) (the b*gg*rs even give you the part number :shock: ), think you might be right though, might only be the TALAS forks that need the tools (Maybe the word TALAS in the tool's name should have given it away :oops: ).

I've heard you can get away with using a football inflater but I really didn't fancy wrecking my forks if it went wrong.

cjw

That's put my mind at ease. Just re-checked the service guide for 100X and you need;

1. Hex Key
2. 10mm Socket
3. 26mm Socket
4. Hammer