Stiction on travel with Tora 302s

toasty
toasty Posts: 2,598
edited February 2008 in MTB workshop & tech
These forks came as stock on my FSRxc Comp last year, from that day the forks were never fantastic, I'd always put this down to wearing them in. It's now about 6 months on and the forks still stick horribly in their travel and never get anywhere near the full travel. I can get around 70mm measured by the marks on them after going out on the trail and this travel isn't smooth in the slightest. Even hammering down on them, with preload at the minimum I can't get any further, it's not bottoming out, the spring rate just seems very high. Which is quite impressive as I'm 14-15 stone.

Is there any way of rebuilding these or likely issues? I've got an old spare pair of Suntour X100s off an Avalanche 1.0 kicking around which are lighter and silky smooth, seems a shame downgrading though.

Comments

  • nicklouse
    nicklouse Posts: 50,675
    So what is the sag setting od the 302's?

    do you have the right springs? the right air settings?
    "Do not follow where the path may lead, Go instead where there is no path, and Leave a Trail."
    Parktools :?:SheldonBrown
  • toasty
    toasty Posts: 2,598
    They're spring forks and I've never stripped them down so don't know what colour, might be a starting place I guess :) It's an XL bike and they seem to have fit it out with this is mind, 203mm discs for example, it might be a black, stiff spring.

    Sag is fairly hard to judge as it'll stick even on the initial travel about 15-20mm in, either extreme still maxes out in a similar way though. I normally run somewhere in the middle, I can only be 50% wrong at the most then!

    It's odd, I've never had this before, I've had a set of Marz Bombers, Revelations, Fox F80X and the Suntour X100 all really smooth.

    PS Impressive to see your replys are still as quick as I recall them being :)
    PPS Shame about Sheldon, top man with a top beard! :(
  • nicklouse
    nicklouse Posts: 50,675
    Toasty could be just a poor set or a set that need a early service. i woyld turn of all rebound and make sure everything is set to min and see if it is the settings or the lubrication!
    "Do not follow where the path may lead, Go instead where there is no path, and Leave a Trail."
    Parktools :?:SheldonBrown
  • toasty
    toasty Posts: 2,598
    Yeah, I'll give that a shot, the rebound seems to work fine though and adjust as expected. I'll undoubtably give stripping them a shot myself first :)

    A service would set me back most of the cost of the forks, Merlin do them for £80 currently. Failing that it'll give me a reason to justify getting some nice Reba SLs which they'll still cheap.

    Cheers
  • I had a similar problem with the Darts on my XtC 4.5. Took it into the LBS from which I bought it; they had a look and said that it did have more stiction than they would expect (I was concerned that the preload was knackered since I'm at the top end of the weight range for the stock spring) and that occasionally they get forks that are built "a bit dry". Anyway, they stripped it down and rebuilt it, lubing it properly (all under warranty) and it's been fine ever since.

    HTH,

    _
  • skyliner
    skyliner Posts: 613
    Rockshox have had problems with oversize lower bushings, and they've developed a method of "rolling" them open to cure stiction.
    I've only seen it on Reba's, but AFAIK, all 32mm stanchion models use the same bushings.
    Yours could be from this batch, and you should be able to get it fixed under warranty.
    Get your LBS to contact Rockshox warranty @ Fisher.
    It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.
  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    Yes, they all use the same bushings and seals.