The Marzocchi MZ Race fork on my bike needs a service. Does anyone know what weight and quantity of oil I should be putting in it?

The fork itself is extremely soft, to the point where I can pretty much bottom it out just by sharply applying the front brake from walking pace. Am I right in thinking that I can firm up the fork a touch by fractionally increasing the oil weight and height?

What year forks are they? It takes a bit of searching but pretty much all the manuals are available somewhere on t’ web.

I think the standard oil weight is 7.5. I also think oil weight makes more difference to rebound than compression damping on these forks but may be wrong. Putting more in should stop bottoming out but you really need to be able to increase preload.

http://www.marzocchi.com/template/listForkStatistics.asp?LN=UK&IDFolder=229

details of volumes of oil here, start with stated amount for the fork and work from there. 😀

Mzs had no oil iirc

They are just coil sprung suntours with a different name

Elastomer damping has probably broken down – they are a fewyears old now ?

They are fitted to a 2007 Kona Caldera and are original to the bike. I have to say I’m surprised by how soft they are, the bike is a 20″ so you’d reasonably expect that most people buying a bike that big would be on the heavy side. I’m about 12 stone wet through and can bottom them out easily. They do have a lockout, which stiffens the fork significantly rather than locking it solid, but I’m not sure if I should use that off road. I’m worried that if I hit something too hard with the lockout engaged, it will damage whatever internal mechanism it engages.