Damping Cartidge Fun

[RexFuzzle]

So I decided to give my forks a service and before I know it I've got the thing in a million pieces and oil everywhere. Anyway, give it a good clean and follow the online service instructions to service most parts and even convert it to a 100mm from a 80mm. Anyway, the online service stuff only gives replacement instructions for the damping cartridge and since I couldn't get seal for the fork anyway, i doubt i'll get a damping cartridge.

 

Long story short, I played around a lot with the oil to air ratio and got it right I recon the only thing that seems to not work as well is the lockout- the oil seeps past the lockout part slowly. I think the problem is that I used a thinner oil as I used 5W from my motorbike supplies but there are no instructions as to what should be used. Any Suggestions?

 

It is a Suntour Axon fork. As I said I converted it to 100mm but there is plenty of space to trill another hole to make it a 120 say, has anybody got any experience in the area?

 

Cheers

[Johan Bornman]

Very few damper cartridges lock out solid. All of them creep if you keep on compressing them. If you let go, it will return to its extended position and start its slow creep all over again.

 

 

The notion of you riding on lockout and the fork slowly sags to its knees is not a realistic riding situation. The only situation where it will slowly creep to its knees is if you ride a huge long berm at high speed (like the inside of a cooling tower).

 

However, most of us ride on more or less horizontal, but uneven surfaces where the fork's position continually returns to zero.

 

Heavier oil will simply reduce the creep slightly (but not as much as a linear ration suggests.

 

Test a couple of forks and you'll see they all creep. None of the valves shut of totally, otherwise they'll damage themselves.