I have done a search for this as I'm sure it's a regular one, but can't find a suitable thread, so apologies.

Got oil leaking suddenly out of the air side of my Rev's (2 years old) – on compression I can clearly hear it being pushed out and it's all round the top, attracting dirt nicely. Never remotely considered taking forks apart before – what do I need to do please and is it difficult? (Warning – ham-fisted clum alert!).

Thanks in advance.

Take it to a shop for a full service if you're not confident. It's not hard, but you can easily break something if you're not careful.

I get a similar thing on my Reba's. Apparently it's due to an o-ring in the top of the leg not being a great fit. Speaking with TFT about it, they use a different o-ring when they service them – apparently it's a Fox one that fits better, but they wouldn't give me anymore details than that – understandably.

I'm not that great at bike stuff, but serviced my forks last week with no bother. Just make sure you have the right tools for the job, a workstand helps to hold the forks and download the tech manual from the SRAM site. Having a mate around might also help – I often find it's good to have a different pair of eyes looking at something & another pair of hands are always helpful.

How much oil is leaking?

I have 2 sets of Revs: one is oily around the top of the MC around the floodgate, the other is oily around the top of the U-Turn adjust. Like you I do hear the fork do a bit of breathing as it compresses but normally onloy at the start of a ride. TBH I wouldn't worry too much although if they are 2 years old they are probably due a service anyway

Thanks guys. Didn't think of the SRAM site…..d'oh! I'll take a look and make a decision, but it sounds like TF are calling at some point.

Amount of oil is fairly small, I suppose it's more the fact that something has changed – ie, it suddenly started breathing out a tiny amount at each compression which it never did before.

Cheers again.

i have some 2008 revs that have been getting a bit of a hard time lately and i noticed yesterday that they seem to travel quite a bit with the lockout enabled. have you seen anything like this?

Yes – I did notice yesterday that they were travelling a lot with the lockout on, which is "new". And the travel adjustment keeps jamming, but that's nothing new!

Sounds like exactly the same thing I had before I serviced mine. SOunds like air is being pushed out as the fork compresses. But, if you check the pressures you probably actually aren't losing anything.

I serviced mine, but as I was short on time, didn't take the air spring part apart – if you look in the tech manual that is probably the most lengthy part of the procedure. In the end, I just took the main gubbins apart, cleaned, re-filled & they feel like new again. The only thing I couldn't do was replace the 6ml of oil that goes inside the air spring, but I'm gonna do a more thorough service soon & will tackle that then.

One of the most important things is get some decent circlip pliers. I bought cheap ones from eBay that have interchangable heads & they are rubbish. They've gone in the bin & I am gonna get myself a proper set of internal & external pliers, rather than a cheap bodge set that doesn't work well.
Oh, and get your fork oil from a motorbike shop – it'll be cheaper than mountain bike specific stuff. Although CRC does have some fairly cheap stuff (but it's 500ml bottles, not litres – although you'll only need about 150ml max of one weight & 60ml or so of the other weight).

i noticed yesterday that they seem to travel quite a bit with the lockout enabled.

AFAIK that could be low oil level: the upper MC section needs 115ml iirc and if the oil drops too low and doesn't cover the MC circuit then the lockout won't work.

SOunds like air is being pushed out as the fork compresses. But, if you check the pressures you probably actually aren't losing anything.

Mine do this but I can't see how this would be any more than annoying as unless air is escaping out the air spring unit it should work fine.

One of the most important things is get some decent circlip pliers.

Yeah, I bought mine off eBay…they were shite: would flex and then the clip would pop off.

yeah i don't think it is the smoothest way to adjust the travel that i have ever seen. i have also started to notice oil rings on the fork legs and so i guess maybe it is time for a service!

shteve….I missed your post. That was one of the main reasons I decided to service mine – after the 24/12 the louckout stopped working & as mentioned above, that can be caused by too little oil in the damping leg.

Servicing sorted this out.

nuke…..sound like the same circlip pliers!! They bent, flexed & were generally a liability. The pins that you push into the circlip pliers kept bending too – I think they were made out of some kind of comedy steel.

stumpy.. i've got the 426 coil version, not the dual air, but i assume they will be fairly similar in how the lockout works. is it difficult to service them?

My mate's got the 2008 coil U-turn Rev 426s & we serviced them at the same time as mine.

The damping side looks exactly the same, but as his don't have a remote lockout, there is a spring in mine that his doesn't have (within the damper assembly. Doesn't make any difference to servicing them.

The coils are easier to service if anything as the spring side is literally just a big spring, you need to remove, clean, regrease & stick back in.

Basic service goes as follows:

– remove lower legs (10 mins max), you might need to give the lower bolts quite a wallop, so a rubber mallet is a good idea – I used my camping one.
– spring service – undo top cap & remove spring, clean, regrease & stick back in.
– damper service – remove top cap & upper damper assembly, clean up & put to one side. Pour out oil, remove damper gubbins from bottom of upper leg & clean. Replace lower damper bits, measure out oil & pour in leg, replace upper damper assembly, stick top cap on
– replace lower legs – stick oil in through lower bolt holes & bolt everything back together before cleaning it all up.
– stand with cold beer surveying excellent workshop skills, before spying circlip on the floor……. ;o)

If you don't buy a service kit, then make sure you don't bend the circlips as you take them out.
I printed out the relevant parts of the tech manual & read through it several times so I was clear on what I was doing at each stage. Just take it slow & you can't really go wrong, just be careful you don't scratch anything or get too ham-fisted.