I bought some second-hand RockShox Revs for the better half’s bike a while back and have just got round to stripping them.
They looked a little beaten up, but felt fine when compressed. On opening them up it was clear that there had been water inside for quite a while as the oil was brown sludge. On cleaning I then found a reasonable amount of surface corrosion inside both legs, but primarily the left (looking at the fork from the top). On closer inspection I also found some paint bubbling around the top of the IS brake mount, but nothing on the leg outer itself.
Now before the high horse riders mount up, I lay no blame with the seller. As he described, there’s some scrapes (as you’d expect on a three year old fork) and he freely admitted he’d never stripped them. He also described the forks feeling fine, and as stated above the forks felt just that when compressed. It’s always a risk buying second hand and I accept that.
What I want to know is will the corrosion prove dangerous? I’m no metallurgist, but I don’t want the leg to snap or the mount to come off halfway down Snowdon. My feeling is that it will be fine in the short to mid-term, but would appreciate other’s thoughts.