Rear linkage stiffer after clean

trobert2
trobert2 Posts: 7
edited June 2017 in MTB workshop & tech
Hello guys,
I have finished a long weekend riding in the Dutch island of Texel on my Canyon Spectral 6.0 AL (2016). It's very sandy over there. I started hearing the sand in the linkage so I thought I would take it apart and clean it. When I did, I have noticed that the screws were really hard to take off. They were unscrewing just fine, but trying to pull them out was tough, like the part it was unscrewing from was pushing on the screw after it realeased. I would expect that taking linkage apart would be easier.
After cleaning and regreasing the bearings (They don't feel rough, but they do feel gritty. I will change them soon.) the linkage feels stiffer. The shock does not sag as much and after I left out some PSI, it does not come back up very easily. My first though might be the grease. I was thinking of taking some WD40 to it and see if that fixes it.
Anyone have any ideas or opinions? Did I mess anything up? Thank you in advance.

Comments

  • jamski
    jamski Posts: 737
    Taking WD40 to what? The bearings or the shock? WD40 on anything isn't a great idea. Someone told be you can spray the bearings, but you need something with PTFE in it. I'm no expert with rear shocks (yet) so will be interested in what others say.
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  • trobert2
    trobert2 Posts: 7
    jamski wrote:
    Taking WD40 to what? The bearings or the shock? WD40 on anything isn't a great idea. Someone told be you can spray the bearings, but you need something with PTFE in it. I'm no expert with rear shocks (yet) so will be interested in what others say.

    Thanks for the answer. The shock is perfectly fine. The linkage is the problem. Even without the shock installed I can feel it tough to push against. My intention with the WD40 was just to maybe take the excess grease off. I am pretty out of ideas.
  • cooldad
    cooldad Posts: 32,599
    WD40 will do good job of stripping the grease. Don't use it for anything.
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  • JBA
    JBA Posts: 2,852
    Did you use a torque wrench when you fitted the linkage bolts or just tighten them up as much as you could?
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  • trobert2
    trobert2 Posts: 7
    JBA wrote:
    Did you use a torque wrench when you fitted the linkage bolts or just tighten them up as much as you could?
    torque wrench. tried letting them a few Nm looser afterwards. I spoke to Canyon. They say they need to see it in order to say if the rear triangle is bent or not.

    I had a look at https://www.canyon.com/downloads/suppor ... BOM_ts.pdf
    I may have added some spacers on the wrong side of the bearing. I will verify after work today.

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