Since there’s too much snow and ice round here to get a ride in this weekend, I’ve deciced to service my forks. Doing lowers and cleaning/lubing the spring side. I’m not disassembling the damper, just cleaning the cartridge and reinstalling. All good, except one thing – there’s a bit on the Fox site about removing the oil from the damper before reinstalling the lowers and adding the new oil. It says:

‘Before proceeding from this point, be sure that you have drained all oil from the damper cartridge.
To remove oil from the damper cartridge, very gently insert a small hex key (1.5 mm) into one of the ports. This action will open the spring-loaded check shim. While holding the check shim open, gently push and pull (very slowly) on the top cap several times. This subsequent action will pump the old oil out of the cartridge. Perform this operation over the oil drain pan.’

All well and good. Except my damper doesn’t have these ports, just a black seal. So do I not have to perfom this part of the procedure, or am I missing something? Don’t want to end up with too much oil in the lowers. Forks are 2012, 150mm Talas, FIT RLC.