FOX Stanchion wear (with pics)

[GoLefty!!]

Hi JD

 

Your  wear would normally start on the airside' date=' as there is only 30mm of fox fluid in that slider. Your stantion is picking up on the top brass bush inside the left slider. If it is only 8 months old, I would send it to fox for either a factory warranty claim, or a complete rebush of the sliders. The damper slider has 160mm of fox fluid, and therefore there is lots of lubrication around the right stantion. Your shocks should be serviced every 100 hrs, stand to be corrected.

If the standard fox dust wiper seals are fitted correctly they work fine. Remember there is a foam O ring under the dust wiper seal that is soaked in fox fluid before being installed, so when the stantion returns from compression there is bound to a slight oil film on the stantion. Hense the dust.

Good Luck

[/quote']

 

 

there we go, submit a warranty claim. WHY? because he didn't change the oil!!? what a crap attitude.

 

Fox damper fluid, 120hrs, lube oil (Left leg) is 30hrs-40hrs. Not a hard job to do.

 

But wait for it, this is a warranty claim

[Johan Bornman]

Jughead does this affect the handling ' date=' performance of your bike or does the oil just bother you ? My Rock Shock SL is 5years 7 months old , has NEVER been opened or serviced , it is still working like the day I got it . Keep you stanctions clean at all times and you will not have problems !![/quote']

 

This is very, very poor advice from you DR - you should know better.

 

Keeping the stanchions clean won't do the trick - unless of course you fill it up with Caltex oil and have all those little okes with cloths and brushes cleaning away as you ride.

 

The seals slide against the stanchions and there is friction. The seals wear and dust slides past them to the inside, where it gets trapped in the oily foam ring. There it forms a nice peanut-butter paste and it grinds away at the stanchions, first abrading the gold anodising and then attacking the softer aluminium underneath.

 

Often this type of damage is only visible once you open the fork.

 

Secondly, water gets in and emulsifies with the oil. This is then a poor lubricant and a poor damper fluid. Your fork will almost certainly work better with new oil, not to mention the reduced stiction with clean seals and foam rings.

 

Service intervals are a conservative estamite of when to service yoru fork. Very dusty or very wet rides will dramatically reduce the service interval.

 

Apply some common sense and adjust your service interval to the riding conditions. If you ask the mechanic what the oil looked like (or ask him to keep a sample for you), you can analise (visually) and quickly learn how often you should service.

 

 

[Tumbleweed]

 

there we go' date=' submit a warranty claim. WHY? because he didn't change the oil!!? what a crap attitude.

 

[/quote']

 

 

 

couldn't you just gooi them with a bill/act...?

[camo]

Go Lefty

can you give us some specifications on FOX and REBA oils / damping fluid and  best place to buy them - LBS does not always keep stock.

 

tanks

[dirtrider]

That was not advice but a comment !!! How much does this shock service cost ? Haha getting your shock oil analise is a bit of an over kill but hell if you really want to send it to WearCheck and they will give you all the info you wanna know about the oil in your R3000 fork .

[Johan Bornman]

Hi JD

 

Your  wear would normally start on the airside' date=' as there is only 30mm of fox fluid in that slider. Your stantion is picking up on the top brass bush inside the left slider. If it is only 8 months old, I would send it to fox for either a factory warranty claim, or a complete rebush of the sliders. The damper slider has 160mm of fox fluid, and therefore there is lots of lubrication around the right stantion. Your shocks should be serviced every 100 hrs, stand to be corrected.

If the standard fox dust wiper seals are fitted correctly they work fine. Remember there is a foam O ring under the dust wiper seal that is soaked in fox fluid before being installed, so when the stantion returns from compression there is bound to a slight oil film on the stantion. Hense the dust.

Good Luck

[/quote']

 

I see it slightly differently. Seal wear is random. I don't see more left seals popping than right seals and vice versa.

 

On Rox forks, the damper oil is insulated from the suspension oil and both sliders have 20mls of lubricaring oil in the oil bath. Therefore both seals have the same lubrication and still, they fail randomly.

 

Although the foam rings are initially soaked in oil, that's just to give the stanchions a good start. The lubricating oil in the sliders splash up and constantly lubricate the foam rings.

 

Clearly a Fox fork has better seal lubrication on the right than on the left.

 

Interesting to note, Marzocchi and some Manitous have no foam rings. Just oil seals and wiper seals in combo.

 

Enduro doesn't give you foam rings for Rox forks, instead they replace it with an oil seal. On the Fox they include an oil seal and a half-height foam ring.

 

I am in two minds about those foam rings. In the hands of the wrong people (those who never service their forks), they are dirt and grit traps and destroy stanchions.

 

Finally, left stanchions often show more wear than right ones, especially at the bottom bush. That's because of the flexing in the sliders that comes from disk brake use. On my V-brake fork I haven't noticed that same mode of wear.

 

 

[Dustbin Dog]

My personal opinion that little oil on the top of the seal is normal and just needs to be cleaned after each ride.  I have read that correctly designed stanchions have a surface texture that allows a film of oil to by pass the seal to keep it lubricated.  My Fox F80 have always leaked a small amount of oil from day one,  and the same after the first service where I replaced the oil and fitted new seals.  All Fox replacement parts.

[Johan Bornman]

That was not advice but a comment !!! How much does this shock service cost ? Haha getting your shock oil analise is a bit of an over kill but hell if you really want to send it to WearCheck and they will give you all the info you wanna know about the oil in your R3000 fork .

 

I think there was a hint of advice in there but nevertheless. I didn't say send the oil to wearcheck, I said inspect if visually. I have developed the habit of draining the oil into a clean container every time I do a fork. This tells me whether there was dust or water in the oil and hence gives me an insight into the seal's condition.

 

An experienced mechanic can also smell and identify decomposed oil a mile away. It stinks of high heaven, especialy if there is a bit of water in there.

 

 

[dirtrider]

OK , would you mind servicing my shock ? Lefty will definitly not do it !!

[Bos]

OK ' date=' would you mind servicing my shock ? Lefty will definitly not do it !![/quote']

 

youre a brave man.

 

 

[GoLefty!!]

Spot On Johan!

 

 

Fox Fork oil is typically Torco Oils RSF medium or heavy. Fox just repackages it and asks for a different colour dye.

 

these are not easy to find so you'll hjave to phone around to motorcycle shops. I donlt have any more and have been struggling to find Torco lately.

I'm looking at finding a replacement oil from one of the local lubricant suppliers.

 

Roxk Shox rebrands Torco RFF oils under the SRAM Pit Stop brand.

 

Again I have the spec sheets for these somewhere and I'll post the viscosities used by RS.

 

Those foam ring wiper seals are a bad idea for the user profilein SA or the UK for that matter. Fox says, if you ride in wet muddy conditions hen you must change the lube oil in their forks every 10hrs! thats every weekend in the UK! Enter Enduro Seals. they do away with the rubbish foam ring thats there only to act as a dirt trap. On a Lefty the foam ring is an air filter. It nevers mixes with lubricant. On Fox's productit does with potentially dissasterous consequences.

 

AS JOhan says, dependin onhow you ride and where you ride the service interal can extend outward so perhaps in Gauteng  you guys can extend it out but how much? Its dusty up there and often it rains in MTB season so how much further than the recommended service interval should you go?

 

You can monitor the dirt in the oil through numerous processes but how much dirt is too much? thats harder to answer so I prefer to stick to the recommended service interval. It saves you money in the long term.

[dirtrider]

Well I would have that thought that JB would be keen to do it even if it would just be for scientific research purposes .

[GoLefty!!]

OK ' date=' would you mind servicing my shock ? Lefty will definitly not do it !![/quote']

 

 

exactly!!
Firstly it will take a week to drain your fork of the Golden syrup you call oil.

 

By then you've run out of budget. I won't fix it cos you can't afford me pansie

 

seriously though, if the internals of the fork are ok I'll service it. But if its in the state where the rider could not feel the difference between a new fork and one with broken shims then I'd rather he get the bad news from the agents who have body guards and big hungry dogs outside their premises. Mine are too well fed.

[dirtrider]

So I let the service of my forks slip for a few years and now everybody wants my nuts on a plate !!! That forks is still as smooth as sandpaper and most probably does not even need a service that badly anyway .

[jugheaddave]

HI Guys

 

Thanks for all the good advice.

 

Just for the record, I am very particular about my bike. Bike gets clean and serviced regularly. I never HP clean the bike and only use slow running water. Most times after a ride I wipe down stanchions, and also occasionally stand bike up-side down (lube seals) Also occasionally put some fork oil on the stanchions and pump the fork up and down. (not sure if this dose anything, but makes me feel like I am doing something)

 

The problem here is that I didn't realize the kind of mileage that I have already done, hence the fork not getting service soon enough.

 

So this is my fault, and not the fault of the manufacturer.

 

However, I do believe that FOX should make more of a point in telling people how NB it is to service there products.

 

So form now on, every 100hrs (+/- every 1500k's) I will service my fork.

 

[jugheaddave]

 

cos I see this type of thing all the time. Okes ask whats the problem' date=' this is &%!! it should last so long cos it cost me so much and its only so old.

 

fact if you drive your car 100km a day you will need to take it for a service more regularly than if you drive it 20km a day.

 

take care of your bike and it will take care of you.

 

I was asked to serviced a blokes fork a week ago. It was horrid inside. I asked him when last was it serviced. He answered after every ride.

Confused I looked at him and said, washing it is not a service. All he said was "oh". So you'll have it fixed in an hour!.

Turns out in the 18months he owned the thing he never had it serviced!!

And then he wanted to negotiate my hourly rate too.

 

I put it back together for him and threw him out my front door.

I was kind enough to give him a list of parts of to buy to get the fork working again.

 

the note read: Buy a new fork, this one is F%$$ed.

 

Lovely RS Reba Team, seals trashed, oil black, damping oil was brown with parts of shim floating around in it.

 

I wasn't interested in his problems.

 

I sent him to the agents to get it repaired.

 

 

Don't turn out like that [:w*nker:'] Dave. Youhave time to save yourself from a lifetime of suffereing from cheapshytalitis

 

 

PS, try relax a little more there lefty, I understand your point, but just chill out.