Troubleshooting Forks

Hey All,

I changed put fresh seals and oil in my forks and they no longer seem to be rebounding as they should. I put 7oz of 15wt oil in each tube.

Here is a video of how they are misbehaving.

https://vimeo.com/123276705

Id really appreciate any thoughts !

Hey, Ryan. Looks like they're binding. You could loosen the front axle, so the forks spring to their natural position, and retry your test.

Things to consider if dealing with 'binding' would be:

Bent fork tube(s)
Bent lower bracket (triple tree)
Top bracket mismatch (like when assembling from a variety of sources).

Some tricks:

Rotate fork tube in loosened triple tree. If slightly bent, may not see it, but could free it up.
Refit different/resized axle spacers. Will see this if forks spring in or out with axle loosened.

Of course, if binding is present, the proper fix is to straighten/realign all those frontend parts...

Did you reinstall the spring preload spacer on top of the spring with a washer underneath?
Did you tighten the triple clamp pinch bolts and then install springs and fork caps? If so the caps may have tightened against the top tree and not actually tightened to the tube.
Loosen tubes in clamps and slide them up to check.

I was worried about that binding, and I did loosen everything up - ill try some rotating and axle spacing.

Chizler - I did put the preload spacer on top of the spring... but im pretty sure i put that little washer ( the one that has an inner flange like a nipple ? ) somewhere else... maybe near the bottom of the spring and not under the preload spacer. Pretty sure my preloadspacers are sitting right on top of the spring - which looked strange as they could move a bit, but following the diagrams it looked like that washer went lower in the assembly.

That funky looking "nipple" washer goes between the spacer and the spring. The "nipple" fits into the top of the spring and keeps the washer centered. If you haven't done so, loosen the axle clamp on the bottom of the left fork leg and pump the forks up and down. That should allow the fork leg to align itself on the axle. Many times, tightening the axle pulls that left leg over and binds it.

Okay I got in there and put the 'nipple' in the right place, loosened everything up and bounced it around. I turned the tubes, i do not believe they are bent. Still not rebounding.

On the dampening rod there is a redish seal near the crown... It was cracked on one of the rods - would that affect rebound ?

If you didn't pull the seals out, it's quite possible that the carrier is rusted and swollen up, binding on the tube. Are you sure what you see that's red is not rust? Could be All Balls fork seals I guess, but the dust wipers should be covering that.

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That red ring at the top of the damper rod is like a piston ring. It should have a gap in it just like an engine piston ring .....



If it has more than that one gap and is cracked or broken like you said then yes, it could be binding in the tube and hampering the fork movement. I would remove the wheel and the top caps, then slowly pump each leg up and down by hand to see if they're functioning smoothly. If they are then it was an alignment problem and not an internal assembly one.