fork n brakes

[TooManyMatts]

I have two tech problems that I really don't know what to do about. Any advice would be well appreciated.

 

 

 

1) My Fox Talas RL 2005 fork is compressing fully whilst riding. The fork slowly compresses to the position of full travel and it stays this way until you bounce around on the fork or stop to let it decompress. The air pressure is correct (i even tried to go way too hard) and the pressure stays constant (ruling out a broken air cartridge). Otherwise the shock performs fine. What is there to do apart from sending it to Fox and crying about the bill for the next month?

 

 

 

2) In order to stop my Shimano XT disk brakes binding I have to align the brake caliper so far to one side that the rotor actually starts binding against the caliper. The pads are worn but not too bad. The brakes are fairly old (2006). The problem seems to be that one of the pistons does not work. It does not have as much travel as its counterpart. How does one remedy this?

 

 

 

Thanks in advance

 

 

 

 

[Johan Bornman]

WRT your first problem, the fork's internal seals are faulty and it needs to be opened, inspected, corrected and refilled bla bla bla. You are not going to avoid the cost side of that. Servicing a fork is a messy, labour-intensive job that requires parts that cost quite a bit - simple parts, but expensive.

 

If you are in Gauteng, I may have a solution for you. See my earlier thread in this Forum, Free Fork Service. This is happening next month, 9 February.

 

As for the latter problem, the one piston is gunked up and stuck. Remove the caliper, remove the pads and manipulate the piston with a suitable instrument (careful, some of them are not made of metal) and some light oil. You need to "mobilise" it again. Basically, you want to get some oil between the piston seals and piston itself. No need to concern yourself with what type of oil, some sewing machine oil will do or whatever you have on hand.

 

Those brakes are filled with "mineral oil" with is just a fancy word for the stuff that comes out of the ground in lucky countries.

 

You can even flood it with Q20 or such whilst manipulating it and degunking it. The idea is just to break the (log)jam there.

 

 

 

[TooManyMatts]

Thanks Johan

 

 

 

The brakes are sorted. I just need to get some more mineral oil and the job will be complete.

 

 

 

Honestly I'm too damn scared to send that fork to Fox. I'm a student... There is one last thing I want to make sure of before I send it in. What does the IFP air chamber do? The fork seems to be working really well so I am hoping that the IFP pressure will be wrong and that this is the cause of the progressive compression that results in a permanent bottom-out (until you take your weight off it). I don't want to fiddle with it if the IFP pressure has nothing to do with the problem at hand

 

 

 

Thanks again.

[NotSoBigBen]

This may help or may just be useless info but I had a Rockshox recon fork where the rebound was way to slow and it tended to do exactly that. It would progressivly give less and less travel till it was bottomed out. Like you say if I then got off it it would return to normal.

[TooManyMatts]

yes that is exactly what is happening. What did you do about it?

 

 

 

 

[NotSoBigBen]

Speeded the rebound up my good man, quick easy fix .............

[TooManyMatts]

I wish I could but the rebound is fully maxed out to the fast side hey. The weird thing is that the rebound feels normal when I'm just bouncing around but when I get into a steady pace the stantions just slowly disappear.