Can anyone explain how this happened? This Fox Talas 36 RC2 (160mm travel) came off a new bike and ridden for ten months. It has been used in normal UK mountain biking conditions in and around Bristol and usually stored hung up by its front wheel, just like other bikes with Fox forks that are many years older. The mark has gone through the anodised surface and is very smooth. There are no heavy score marks.

Fox 1 by Furnichair, on Flickr

Fox 2 by Furnichair, on Flickr

Fox 3 by Furnichair, on Flickr

Fox 4 by Furnichair, on Flickr

Dirt got under the seals, stays there and wore away the anodising. Very common in forks which don’t have the seals lifted regularly for a clean and a lube. Affects all brands, but fox do seem quite prone to it. The manual says lift the seals and clean every 15 hours of use.

yep happens to loads and you will be told it’s your fault.
my f100 rlc’s are wearing out slowly not as bad as yours mind. i do the dust wiper service about once a month.
in away i am not arsed though because my stanchions have allways creaked like mad in the crown.
anyone know how much a kashima upgrade is?

Oscaaarrrrr………. reckon you should have lifted the seals mate 😉

Working by logic, you say you hang the bike up by the front wheel. I assume that this has over ten months put a pressure dip in the fork seal/wiper where the weight of the bike has been and this combined with use has allowed dirt in past the seal/wiper and thus wear in that area mainly used in the everday riding suspension travel.
Its only my theory and I have no Fox forks so cant speak from experience.

All Fox forks do it. It’s our fault.

Not enough lube – top bush running dry is my bet

kashima coating won’t offer more protection, it’ll just be even more expensive to replace…*

(*i’m just feeling a little sceptical this evening)

Welcome to the world of suspension forks! You have classic stanchion wear caused by bits of dirt in the seals and poor servicing. Forks need a lot more tlc than a service every 10 months. There’s no way to fix what you have, you can either buy new forks or run them further into the ground

do you use muc-off on them ?

try to store them upside down. then the oil slowly weeps past the bushes keeping them lubed. obviously not those, they’re ****. but any replacement.

kashima coating won’t offer more protection, it’ll just be even more expensive to replace…*

you are of course correct but i intend to keep a closer eye on it next time. i dunno i might check mid ride aswell next time.

Yep happened to mine, lifting the seals is no good, remove the lowers and clean regular.

Nail varnish them up and then the finest wet and dry you can get.
Loads of people have done this – advice here.. You have nothing to lose.
The real experts use epoxy, but this is much harder to buff smooth.

Also try enduro seals, I rate them a lot, seem to keep the crap out more and also the forks run smoother.

That has never happened to a Fox fork before, ever. And there’s absolutely no chance it’d happen again with Kashima legs or with the new seals- after all, it’s not as if they’ve claimed they’ve fixed the problem half a dozen times before…

Course, to be fair it does happen to other brands, just not as often. And the only person I know of that’s had it with Rockshox got them rebuilt under warranty, no questions asked.

Seen it on a few sets of Fox forks. Did you have the lower leg bushes replaced along with the crown steerer unit? The reson I ask is there are some grooves in the bushes to allow oil to pass to lubricate the upper part of the stanchions. As the bushes wear the grooves dissapear leaveing less path for lubrication. Imho the worst causes seem to be useing a large front rotor (203)mm as it it always the left leg that wears worse. The vanilas seem less effected, i guess this is because there is a fair bit more lub oil sloshing around in the leg. Talas forks a very little lube oil (10 ml for some versions) in the left leg, floats a little more (30ml). If any of the oil is lost o it becomes contaminated with dirty water the lubrication is almost zero.

Simple DESIGN FAULT. Simply solved by not buying Fox. I wouldn’t even buy a bike with Fox forks on.

Surely as things wear there would be more space for the fluid to get through?

Servicing helps, also washing around the seals after every ride if its muddy.

I have had 3 pairs of Fox forks in the past 4 years, not one pair have shown signs of wear.

Has this happened to your Fox forks?

Of course it has, it’s happened to every pair of Fox forks ever made except for about 4, the owners of which will be along in a minute to tell you it’s all your fault for using them outdoors.

Surely as things wear there would be more space for the fluid to get through?

Well not exactly. As they the 2 parts wear they wear together. So the stanchion and bush are bedded into the exact radius of the other part, and the oil grooves wear away. This causes the oil to be scraped of the stanchion by the edge of the bearing / bush, giving loss of lubrication. Further to this, as the bushes & seals wear more water / dirt can be drawn down into the oil causing the oil to break down. Under brakeing, like going down hill fast then useing the front brake quite hard on rough ground, a great deal of the force is applied to the left leg top bush as the calliper trys to force the lower leg to turn forward. Result wear.
Imho rockshox dont seem to suffer from this as often.

Just use fork lube. Cost about £9, spray on every other ride or 5 and this won’t happen. Simples.

Rubbish

Samuel, wear like this doesn’t happen overnight. Have you ever lifted/cleaned the seals & lubricated the foam rings with the Fox blue lube…..ever ? I’m keen to avoid this happening to my 36’s.

D.

scottfitz – Member

Just use fork lube. Cost about £9, spray on every other ride or 5 and this won’t happen. Simples.

Mince.

The beauty of Fox forks is that they are really easy to perform a basic clean n wipe service on them. Something the OP hasn’t done, oh well you live and learn.

You’ll see a few small grooves on the outside of the fork seal. Using a small screw friver (flat head that fits in the groove and with the metal tip covered by some electrical type) start levering the seal until it pops out. This will give you access to the foam ring (which you can lubricate with either 7.5 WT suspension oil or Fox Fluid)

Also using either a cotton swab with some grease get underneath the seal and clean the crap out. ALternatively you can stick two or three strip of electrical tape to the stanchion and lift the seal onto, and rotate it as you lift. Any dirt inide the seal will be collected on the edge of the strip.

Obv this won’t solve your problems but it will
a) avoid further damage to the stanchion
b) make your fork feel a lot better – i imagine it probably feels as bad as it looks

I ride 3-4 times a week and run a Fox 36 VAN from 2008 which i’ve had for 2 and a half years and i tend to carry out this process every week if i’ve been riding a lot. I’ll admit i quite enjoy it, but it also makes the fork feels smooth.

Have you been using chain oil to lube the fork stanchions?

Can’t help feeling that Fox forks are rubbish, I have 2006 Pikes that have been serviced twice, 2008 Revalations that have been serviced once and 2003 Bombers that have been serviced once. None have any particular wear to the stanchions.

Are we seriously saying that you would have to lift the fork seals and service them halfway through a 24 hour race to comply with the warranty?

Northwind Mince.

Wouldn’t necessarily disagree if you’re talking about the fork lube bit but disgree with your sentiment. A 2minute bit of maintenance after each ride is all ANY fork needs. Quick wipe around the seal, apply some 5 or 10wt fork oil around the stanchions, pump them up and down then wipe off excess. If you can’t do that you don’t deserve the benefits.
But I like my fox forks simply because, well, frankly, all the cool kids have them. Seriously.

@neallyman: I’m a cool kid & you’re right, I do have em!

This has happened to mine, got them second hand with new enduro seals but just purchased new seal kit because of this thread – thanks. 😉

There’s life in em yet. BTW – 08 Fox Talas RL 140. Super dooper…

its a shame like crank bros pedals in use floats are the best forks around
they just weren’t designed/tested with mud in mind
you’ll have to do the nail varnish trick as mentioned above and ride them till they die
then buy some open bath marzocchis because any fork you have to service half way through a 24 Hr race isn’t really worth the silly amount of money they cost

I have had 4 pairs of fox and no hasn’t happened to me as I service mine regularly – My 2011 F120’s are great – Kashima def more robust and the seal are better – I had a very tiny amount to scoring on my Talas forks coz I was a bit lazy – also fitted some enudro seals and that has stopped any further damage.

If you regularly do a seal clean you’ll be fine is my recommendation. (regularly depends on how often you use your forks!)

it’s happened to every pair of Fox forks ever made except for about 4

Yay, I’m one of the 4! Except I’ve got 2 pairs, so I’m 2 of the 4! Brill.

Hmmmm. Must find time this weekend to give my forks a bit of TLC…

Sam,

Please drop me an email mate – my pal as a ‘as new’ sanction/crown/steerer off a fox 36 for sale, he was keeping it as a spare but is now running Lyrik’s

smithy7886 at yahoo dot com

Fox forks do need regular servicing, both user lower leg/seal and full services at or near to the specified intervals.
Saying that I’ve used Fox for the last 10 years or so and never had the legs go other than from crash damage. Still have a set of original floats that are ok on my wifes bike.

The new SKF low friction double lip seals are better than the older ones in terms of performance and sealing in conjunction with Kashima coat uppers longevity should be much better, but they still need to be looked after.

My next forks will be Fox as the new models with the FIT carts are some of the best available atm 😀

Yep happened to me, replaced the uppers at my cost, the new uppers creaked like a bastard at the crown so had them replaced under warranty – forks went on Ebay.

Never again.

Turn your bike upside down every now and again so the washer gets some oil soakage. Fox refused to service my borther in laws forks when he sent his off so they gave him some new but secondhand stantions

Mine have worn slightly after 1year and regular fox float lube on the wipers (5times)- not anywhere near as bad as yours, mine are just showing signs of wear on the inner air spring leg. I hadnt changed the seals, so replaced them as well as the wipers on my last service after noticing the wear.

My new build is now rock shox and I’m not going back to fox anytime soon. It peeved me off considering the effort I made to service them regularly.