Fork Service?

desmorrow

How often should you 'service' your forks? Is this a job for the bike shop or reasonably straightforward?

Cheers

D

nicklouse

it depends on the fork. what does it say in the manual?

paulneenan76

The lowers can be done every 6 months and can be done by you with relative ease - lots of YouTube vids etc
Full service is probably best left to experts, unless you're good at that kind of thing, and can be done every 12 months.

Like a car, it's based on your type of usage and the mileage.

Lower service approx £50, full service approx £80.

Hope that helps.

coulddobetter

With no prior experience , a 10mm and 24mm socket, 5mm allen key and circlip pliers I recently replaced all the seals and schrader valves on a rockshox sid ( lowers not holding air) Total cost around £ 35.00 took about an hour and would be quicker next time .

If sending them off I would have been minus the bike and lighter in the pocket. Sram website has full pdf tech documents , follow those and it's very easy .

jimothy78

I found the download-able Rockshox manuals to be very clear, with good step-by-step instructions, and successfully managed to completely strip down my Revelations (lowers, air chamber, damping circuits, the works) and replace all the seals and o-rings with no problems.

"full service kit" cost £17,
5wt oil (for damping circuit) £6
15wt oil (for the lowers) £6 (enough for dozens of services)
Stendec easy glide grease £8 (again enough for dozens of services)
Isopropyl alcohol £6 (enough for a few services) £6

So that's essentially a cost of about £25-£30 per full service, or you could do a lower leg service and replace the dust seals and foam rings for about £15. Again, I found the process pretty straightforward, so if you're fairly handy have have a decent selection of tools I'd recommend doing it yourself - you will need a torque wrench to avoid over-tightening things, circlips pliers for removing/fitting snap rings, and a schrader valve core tool (the only thing i didn't have - picked one up from amazon for about £1.50 including postage).

rockmonkeysc

I send mine away for an annual full service.
Every three months I give them a lower lube and clean the seals. Every six months I service the air spring as well with new o rings and circlips.
Forks are expensive and worth looking after. The SRAM service manuals are really good, any idiot could follow their instructions.

Dick Scruttock

Best thing I can advise is cleanliness. It cannot be overdone on a fork service. Make sure the fork is clean before you pull it to pieces and then make sure every piece is clean when you put it back together.

rockmonkeysc

Rick Draper wrote:

Best thing I can advise is cleanliness. It cannot be overdone on a fork service. Make sure the fork is clean before you pull it to pieces and then make sure every piece is clean when you put it back together.

Alcohol based cleaner (muc off disc brake cleaner) and lint free cloth (£3 for a big roll from Homebase)