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Crush Washers


Johan Bornman

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Those of you who service your own forks will know what I'm talking about: the availability of crush washers.

 

These little use-once washers that work with the footnuts on your Rox or Fox shox are not available seperately. Therefore, if you service your fork between seal changes, you have to make do with the old washers. This is hard to do and definitely not ideal.

 

I got gatvol of nagging suppliers and American companies that don't answer e-mail from countries that aren't one of the 52 chosen states. I had them made up - at a ridiculous cost, I'll add, but so what. No more fiddling with old washers.

 

post-1761-021310900 1283458715.jpg

 

Individually-machined nylon crush washers.

 

 

I had a machine-shop make them for me. The minimum quantity that I had to get was 500 - which should last me a very long time. The price - a cool R5-70 each. Obviously the answer is to have them injection moulded at a cost of 1 cent each. But that requires more investment in dies than I can afford.

 

The good news? If you want some, I'll share with you. Minimum quantity - 10. Mark-up - Zero. And I'll prove it with an invoice.

 

All of you who attended my fork service workshops, here's your chance.

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Those of you who service your own forks will know what I'm talking about: the availability of crush washers.

 

These little use-once washers that work with the footnuts on your Rox or Fox shox are not available seperately. Therefore, if you service your fork between seal changes, you have to make do with the old washers. This is hard to do and definitely not ideal.

 

I got gatvol of nagging suppliers and American companies that don't answer e-mail from countries that aren't one of the 52 chosen states. I had them made up - at a ridiculous cost, I'll add, but so what. No more fiddling with old washers.

 

post-1761-021310900 1283458715.jpg

 

Individually-machined nylon crush washers.

 

 

I had a machine-shop make them for me. The minimum quantity that I had to get was 500 - which should last me a very long time. The price - a cool R5-70 each. Obviously the answer is to have them injection moulded at a cost of 1 cent each. But that requires more investment in dies than I can afford.

 

The good news? If you want some, I'll share with you. Minimum quantity - 10. Mark-up - Zero. And I'll prove it with an invoice.

 

All of you who attended my fork service workshops, here's your chance.

 

Or just get a Marzocchi, no crush washers needed.

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I want 10. Mail me your bank detail strydomi@iafrica.com and you can post them in an envelope? PO Box 14717, Sinoville, 0129

 

Jaco

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Well played. Rare as rocking horse poo these things.

 

I'll take 20. I'll send the money to the CT fork service workshop with MoreTrails.

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Excuse my ignorance but is the purpose of these washers? I just serviced my Reba and put the old one back in as it came out. I have had no problems with the fork.

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Good grief, if you can get hold of specs and stuff, you buy the raw material and have someone cut it in a lathe for you...might work you out less than R100. R5.70 each YAY!!!

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Excuse my ignorance but is the purpose of these washers? I just serviced my Reba and put the old one back in as it came out. I have had no problems with the fork.

 

These are use-once washers that seal the bottom of the fork. I agree that they can be used more than once. However, if the footnuts were torqued properly, these washers deform and fill the threads and other cavities in the footnut/compression rod area and become difficult to remove and re-use. After their second use they provide no more protection to fork at all, nor do they seal. Further, to re-use them you'd typically want to file out the centre so that it can fit over the compression rod again. It really is not worth the effort, especially if you do this professionally and your time is worth more than R10-00.

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Good grief, if you can get hold of specs and stuff, you buy the raw material and have someone cut it in a lathe for you...might work you out less than R100. R5.70 each YAY!!!

 

The spec is easy - you measure a new one or reverse engineer it by measuring the cavity it has to fill. That I've done. Finding someone who will do this for less than R5-70 is the issue. If I had a lathe it would do it myself. So yes, it does look expensive and it is. but in my case, R12-00 extra to the cost of servicing a fork is peanuts compared to the grief of reusing old ones or driving all over the show looking for someone who is willing to do this for me for a few centres less.

 

As I said, I don't expect to sell these and get rich. All I wanted to do was buy was convenience and I offered a few of my fork service mates some of it too.

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Well played. Rare as rocking horse poo these things.

 

I'll take 20. I'll send the money to the CT fork service workshop with MoreTrails.

 

 

Thanks Droo, e-mail me your postal address so long and I'll pop them in the mail for you with the others this morning.

johanatyellowsaddledotceeodotzeda

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Good grief, if you can get hold of specs and stuff, you buy the raw material and have someone cut it in a lathe for you...might work you out less than R100. R5.70 each YAY!!!

 

Cervelo, this is easier said than done....have you tried to go to a machineshop and ask them to do this....?

 

Sure you can get the raw material....then you ask someone to cut it for you....do you think they are going to do that for free?

 

Johan, more than likely had to pay for the worker's hourly rate at a minumum of 1 hour or something like that.

 

Hence the price of R5.70 a washer.

 

Good on Johan to actually organise this.

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Cervelo, this is easier said than done....have you tried to go to a machineshop and ask them to do this....?

No, don't need to. My dad has a workshop in his garage...helped me with a couple of things before. The problem is most businesses don't want to do small odd jobs. Thats why these are so expensive. Even builders...they wanna build houses, extra rooms. Fixs, braais and such things. NOOOOOO..

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Out of interest, does anyone know off hand what the actual dimensions are for these washers? I assume the internal diameter is 8mm due to the schrader valve but don't know the rest. I may know of a company who can supply something compatible.

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