New to this forum, please be nice!

Removed the mo-co unit from my RS Recon 351’s the other day, sent off to Loco for repair, arrived back today, refilled the leg with 130ml of oil, as per instructions, refitted the mo-co and with the lockout either on or off, the fork is absoloutely rock solid.

Have I done something stupid? Done all this with the forks in situ on the bike, do I need to drop the lowers or something?

Thanks in advance, Ben

too much oil i would think in the moco – what travel and what age are they?

140mm 2010’s (I think)

I thought 120ml for recons, same as mine. Sounds like too mcuh oil as well from the symptoms.

No i take it back
manual

130 it is. Did you remove the whole damper assembly? there could still have been oil in the lower part of the system.

double edit: reads post properly – forks still on bike – did you invert the fork to empty the oil, and cycle the travel? This would have freed any oil in the system between the damper and the lower seal, and so emptied the system.

So I turn the bike upside down, release the air, cycle the forks to get all the damper oil out, and refill?

Ben

Yeah. I mean ideally remove the forks, easier in the long run.

But in the lower part of the inner tube is the damper on a piston. this slides up and down through the oil as the fork compresses. However if you empty the oil out, and don’t remove this/cycle the fork. Then oil will IME remain in that space. Collect the oil and measure. It will be worth knowing if you get more than 130 out. If yes then you can bet you have ID’d the problem. If not then time to consider other things. Compression off when you reassemble as well (shouldn’t make that much diff though).

Tried cycling the fork empty of oil, reassembled and all seems ok.. Be kinda rude not to take it on a shakedown ride tomorrow and check 😆

Will report back, thanks for the advice!

Ben

Awesome, did you measure? (v. interested to know).

Happy ridin’

Didnt measure (been pouring into a paint tray) got a little extra squirt and a few more drops out when I cycled it through travel though.

Hmmm. I’ve heard it doesn’t take too much extra to throw it off. Didn’t know the effect was that drastic though…

Well. You did things to your own forks. Tomorrow you ride with pride!

Hi Ben,

have you had the lowers off and check the rebound seal head seal hasn’t ‘blown’ and let some damping oil into the lowers casusing a hydraulic lock. If you’re still having issues tomorrow, this would be the next thing to check 😀

Hoping not Simon as I’m sure I replaced it last week when I bought the seal/service kit off ya.

Will try get out for a blast later and see if I’m getting full travel etc, cheers guys!

Been on the local loop, which includes some square-edged hits, hops, drops & pumping. Got the tape measure out and the hightest dust – mark on the stanchion is about 55mm.. Should I be worried?

I weigh roughly 14st (200ish Lb) and the air in the fork is 115/120psi.. Which is as-per the sticker on the fork lower.

Thanks, Ben

How much sag do you get when you just sit on the bike in the standing attack position? IME RS pressures don’t relate to reality, so actual sag is always the way to go. Although I weigh a little more than you and run my Dual Airs (pikes) at 140/130 but different forks etc so can’t do strict comparison.

certainly you should be getting more travel than that. If your sag is right (with the compression fully off), then I’d give Simon a ring on monday, but it may be you do need to take the fork off the bike and have the lowers off. Always the better way to do fork work – though I’m impressed at your emptying the upper with the fork on the bike, no way i could have done that without getting oil over everything including myself and swearing a lot. 😀

Yeah I’ll probably pester Si again monday, I did have the lowers off/ do a complete service last weekend, which is when I found the lockout on the Mo-co was faulty.

Getting about 15/20mm sag, thinking I’m running too much air? They’re only solo-air’s, nowt posh!

I did spill some, but had the paint tray & some rag to hand.. all towards the cause of getting it back together and getting out riding, haha! 😀

yeah, I’d be looking for 40mm for starters and adjust for personal preference from there. So don’t panic yet. Is that standing, with arms and legs bent?

ahh, when you said 115/120 my geeky brain read as neg and pos.

Looks like I’ll be getting the tie-wraps out then for a play!

get your sag right, and give fork a really good shove, they should give you 75-85 % of travel (not an exact science that, but should tell if you’re in the ball park).

I put 190 in the neg chamber of my pikes a while ago cos I wasn’t paying attention and doing several things at once, spent a whole night worrying my forks were ****… 😳

I just release press out the +’ve till I get 40mm sag, right?

If your pump allows you to release air on it via the button I’d use that as you can see what pressure you’re at for future reference. Failing that small adjusts can be done by unscrewing and rescrewing the pump.

To set 40mm sag I’ve gotta run about 55psi, which means the forks dont fully return, and I’ve got to pull the stanchions out of the lowers for the last 10mm or so of travel.

Also still only getting around 50mm of travel when the forks are depressed, even with that low pressure. Confused.

No, somat up there very definitely.

Think a call to Simon on the cards. Probably worth removing fork from frame, and lowers before as he may want to know things are seated right at the bottom of the uppers to rule things out as above.

Might be worth doing that tonight, you may find something obvious. gutted for you dude, don’t let it put you off doing fork work, worst case scenario you’ll learn how to recognise and fix this particular problem 😉

Do I need to drop the lowers off, and have a look up the damper side stanchion then? Check everything’s square?

Ta

At this point yeah, I would. Even go so far as to remove it and look it over, Pop it back, if nothing visibly awry. then you KNOW the upper was empty of oil. reassemble (don’t need to bother putting oil in the lowers at this stage as long as you remember to go back and do it later if you sort your issue), that way if you need to remove them again you’re not making things too messy/complicated.

should be able to tell if sorted without putting back on the bike by the sounds of it.

Will I be able to check its getting full travel etc without any oil in the lowers?

Yeah the oil just lubes the bits. Like I say don’t ride them like that, but just to put em together and check they it’s fine and does effect it. Still need the oil in the compression uppers mind.

Looks like I’m getting the gloves and tools out again then!

Right lowers are off, had the damping assembly apart.. again, there was definately no oil in this time. Topped up to 130ml and refitted the MoCo.

Do I need to refit the lowers/ repressurise the air to check I’m getting full travel?

Thanks.. again! Haha

No you don’t need to fit lowers to check damper side is allowing full travel, just push the rebound rod up (NOT too far though!!) and this will show whether they’re working ok or not, check with the lockout on as well to see if this is working.

What year are they, I’m not sure as have only seen the Moco, the 2011 onwards models are 133 ml of 5wt for the damper.

Older models have 118ml in although they’ll take 120ml. an extra 13ml would cause issues if the you’re looking at the newer oil chart.

So if I push the rebound rod up say, 140mm or so? As that should be its max travel.

They’re 2010 Recon 351 Solo-air’s, the oil chart says 130ml, is that right?

Do I need to push the air side rod up aswell to check travel? I had the valve core out the other day (with the forks on the bike) and when depressed the forks seemed to travel pretty much all of the stanchions into the lowers.

Thanks, Ben

I will totally defer to LoCo here – far more knowledgeable as in 10 to my 3, but in his absence I would suggest push the rebound side, to a max of 140 (don’t think more would do any harm tbh). That will tell you if there is anything up with that side. Air side is s a different system and with the lowers off the two are independent. If the MoCo allows full travel, then I would put the lowers on and see how it is then.

Important question too late (ok, – 2 going on 2 and a half), before you disassembled the damper side, did it allow full travel pushing on the rod? just in case you got curious and pushed… (i never do, just pull things apart then later wish I’d paid more attention 😉 )

If I push down firmly on the damper side I’m getting about 105mm travel, if I push down quite hard I can get about 115, which would suggest to me that that’s all ok.

Refit the lowers, check with no air in to see if I’m getting somewhere near full travel y’reckon?

Ben

Edit; Of course I didn’t check travel before I stripped it all down that’d make sense.. silly 🙄

Sounds ok. Here again my specific knowledge lets me down, I don’t really know what is normal in this instance. certainly sounds like more than you got before, would be tempted myself (that’s just me!)

First off as Loco suggests, does the compression stop you pushing the damper side in?

Not really, seems pretty much the same 😐

hmmm, do they have external floodgate adjust, is it fully on? Which way up are the forks as you test?

When they’re all back together, compress them with valve core out, if you get full travel (rememebering the bump stops are 3 to 4 mm thick, they’ll be fine.
If you don’t I’d try them with 125ml in the damper chamber and see how that works, fine adjustment can be made by just removing the moco carefully and removing a littl oil.

When I’m compressing them with the lockout on/off I can see air/oil coming out from around the compression knob circlip, is it just the o-ring below thats leaking? Do I just need to remove & refit?

Also I was testing the travel with them upside down, but with them the right way up it still seems the same..

I’m starting not to enjoy playing with forks 😕