Fox float 32 v harsh. Oil coming out of air input valve

robbroo

So I have been unhappy with my fox float forks for a while. Last week I serviced the seals and replaced the oil in the lower leg. When putting them back together I needed to release a bit more air pressure. When I did this with forks upside down a load of oil came out...about 10 mls say.

Is this normal? If not is it contributing to poor ride of the forks?

Help please

HenryTheHoover

What year and which fork is it?

There should be 5ml of float fluid in the air chamber. This would squirt out a bit if you deflate the forks upside down but 10ml is far too much.

The cause could be it has been overfilled. Or. Oil from the lowers has got past the air piston seal into the air chamber.

If I remember rightly there was a problem a few years back because fox used a foam wiper under the air seal. This trapped oil from the lowers and helped it to force its way past the seal into the air chamber. The fix for this was either just to remove the foam wiper and keep a bit more on top of servicing or replace the foam wiper with a rubber wiper ( supplied by fox / mojo ).

R.e. the amount of oil in the lowers you have to refer to the fox website. There are different amounts and different types of oil for different forks.

HenryTheHoover

P.s. I forgot to mention. if you get hold of a flush faced 26 mm socket it is fairly easy to strip the air side down yourself.

Dick Scruttock

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19719437#p19719437]cyd190468[/url] wrote:

If there is too much splash oil in the lower on the airspring side, the oil can make its way into the air chamber. The lower on the air side only needs a couple of ml of oil. The damper side requires much more. I tip my bike upside down for 30mins and purge the oil from the air spring every couple of months.

The oil migrating to the air spring has nothing to do with the quantity of oil in the lowers been too much.

Also the oil volumes vary depending on fork model, some require the same in each leg.

HenryTheHoover

Good point.

Just to clarify my post, when I said overfilled I meant too much float fluid in the air chamber not oil in the lowers. Its unlikely but sometimes people put a bit extra float oil in the top to decrease the air chamber volume.

The Rookie

If you invert it and empty the air out, oil SHOULD come out.
Its unlikely oil from the lowers will make it into the airspring chamber faced with 150+psi opposing it!

If it was 10ml it was overfilled though not fatally so.

Dick Scruttock

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19719582#p19719582]The Rookie[/url] wrote:

Its unlikely oil from the lowers will make it into the airspring chamber faced with 150+psi opposing it!

Its a common problem and why Fox removed a foam ring and installed a scraper seal. Thats why when you remove the oil from the top of the air spring it is sometimes greenie blue in colour and not blue. Its the lower leg fluid and the float fluid mixing together. This is why the lower leg on the air side always wears out, all the splash lube ends up in the air spring with time.

Then again if you put 5cc's of float fluid in the air spring and then when you service it again in x amount of months you find you have 20cc's of fluid in there maybe the fairy came and topped it up :roll:

HenryTheHoover

From what I have read the issue was only on the forks with the foam wiper. This was done away with a few years ago. The newer models have two scraper seals facing in opposite directions. Hence my question about how old the forks are.

I stripped my forks down this weekend and thought the resistance of the two wiper seals againt the inside of the stansion was quite high. I was a little bit tempted to remove the botom one in the hope it would increase smalll bump sensitivity which is lacking on my 32 floats.

rockmonkeysc

If you open the air valve with the fork inverted then the oil in the air spring will come out. It will have pooled in the valve when you inverted the fork so it's going to come out as soon as that valve is opened.
Have they always felt bad? Some Float 32's are just bad forks, especially the CTD evolution models and the pre CTD float R models.

robbroo

Thanks guys for all you thoughts and suggestions. Basically I think it's down to me having a bad fork. It is a float R and I have never been really happy with it but recently it just seems harsher. I have been riding the last couple of days and messed around with the air pressure and rebound. It seems better since I let that bit of oil out and yes that was my mistake but it seems to have helped....conclusion seems to be get a new fork.....

rockmonkeysc

A service might help but to be honest it's a very basic and not very good fork plus it's old now.

robbroo

It has been serviced.....time to replace then