When I got my bike the guy who I bought it off said the forks weren’t great but they did the job, kind of. They are Manitou Axel Comps.

Out riding to work today and the amount of bob from the forks was just ridiculous which is resulting in me not being able to get much power down and riding something akin to a pogo stick. They have an adjuster knob on the left hand leg but I can turn and turn and turn and it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever. I had tried to find some stiffer springs for them but havnt had much luck as most springs seem to be for the Axel Elites.

The left hand seal has crap all around the top of it and when the forks compress they are leaving dirty marks on the stanchions.

My line of thought is they are buggered but does anyone else have any ideas as to whats going on with them?

Manitou <=========== there’s the problem.

Sounds more like a damping issue (ie lack of it) than spring rate.

Unlikely to be worth spending much time/money/effort on unfortunately.

ignore above, manitou do make some of the simplest and easiest to work on forks.
Sounds like all the oil has leaked out and thus you have no damping. Open her up you have nothing to lose.

Axels are only the OEM specials and arent complicated internally

Don’t look at it as a bad thing. Embrace the opportunity to get an upgrade. (Rockshox Tora or Recon or Marzocchi MX if you aren’t spending much)

I had Axel comps a few years ago. They flexed to the point where the tyre rubbed on the arch and then failed locked solid. the bottom had broken off a plastic bit and allowed oil to drain to the bottom resulting in hydraulic lock.

Manitou have always made good fork lines and duff fork lines at the same time – Different factories maybe?

Anyway, the trick is to find the good ones. Cheap axels were terrible, the top end ones worked well enough but were rather flexible by today’s standards.

As turnip says they’re dead easy to work on, as are most forks these days, apart from the proprietary components.

looks like its new forks for me then…..shite

I upgraded from the axel comps to 80mm manitou skareb comps, if you are interested in buying a cheap alternative, whilst you save up for something better, get in touch.