My Reverb is 3 years old and is starting to sink a little bit, whilst also sticking and taking a lot of force to go down. I’ve got a few questions.

1- Will a home service (replacing the seals and oil etc.) sort the sinking issue?

2- If not who’s cheapest to fix it? Flotech in Linlithgow will do it for £50 and I trust them based on reports of others.

3- If I can fix it at home, what kit do I actually need? The pinkbike guide suggests I need many, many things including circlip pliers, a Reverb specific IFP height tool and oil height tool and grooved soft jaws on top of the service kits (either £7 for the basic one, or £37 for the complete one and given the many issues with the post I bet it’s the expensive one I need). Given the total cost of all this tat, £50 for a professional sounds like an alright bet, especially considering it has lasted 3 years so far and based on this service interval it will be for sale by the time the next one is due.

Thanks in advance.

Nobody got any ideas? There must be a few people that’ve done home Reverb services?

I had the same dilemma a few weeks back and ended up just getting it serviced by Loco tuning. There were too many specific tools required and I couldn’t find them anywhere, specifically the IFB height tool

£50 sounds good, particularly if you factor in the time spent doing it for the first time even if you had the tools

mine had lasted about 2 years before dying and now its amazing, better than when I first bought it to be honest

Having watched the videos, I’d send it away. They’re full of tiny bits and pieces that appear to want to fly all over the place on disassembly. I don’t mind servicing forks, happily rebuilt my ROCO shock and some dreaded zocchi ATA forks, but these look to be a proper PITA.

Alright then, I’m having my rear shock done at the same time (it’s got a hole in the damping). I can’t say I object to sending it off- normally I would but with a fork, shock and seatpost to service as well as post-puffer servicing on my bike I can’t be bothered doing it all so just fettling the forks sounds fine to me.

I service my forks, but when I started to take my Reverb apart I soon stopped and sent it off.

Some things are best left to others – especially as you will probably only do it once ever few years.

Also bear in mind that a new Reverb can be had for about £160 ish new on the internet. So, if you find your about to send it off for its second service, you may as well buy a new one.

I’m happy to service as much of my kit as possible, including the Reverb. Sooo, having watched loads of videos about it off I trotted to the shed armed with a pair of circlip pliers and a set of seals. Everything was great until I dropped the post and dislodged the innards, spilling fizzy oil everywhere. Not a problem I thought, I’ll order the requisite tools and get on with it. A week later, no tools. A nice polite email from the on-line seller was in my junk folder though, letting me know that they are expecting one of the tools to be delivered by the importer on Jan 26th. Another tool they have no information about and the third one is in stock. The website clearly states that delivery is usually within nine days (carefully couched terms!).

So- sorry to hijack the thread but does anyone have the tools I could borrow/ hire or know of a work-around I could use? I’m in Carmarthenshire, South Wales.

I’ve bought all the tools recently from Alltricks. Going to try the service next week.

Ambrose, send me an email (address in profile). I can help you there.

Tweakie, YGM.

A basic service is pretty easy. Finding a big enough adjustable spanner was my biggest challenge!

If it’s sinking you need to do a full service though, as it usually means the IFP seal has worn (apparently RS seal QC isn’t great). They should have fitted a quad seal imo

You can bodge the kit but for £50 it’s probably worth getting it serviced. Or flog it for £100 and buy a new post for £150

Having spent most of the afternoon and evening yesterday attempting it and failing. Dissassembly was relatively straightforward, except there are two stages (removing the lower inner silver threaded thing, i forget the name, and the poppet valve) where the components fire themselves about. With no warning in the video I saw. Took me half an hour to find the poppet top cap!

Replacing all the seals etc is pretty easy, just follow the instructions to the letter. Putting it back together on the other hand….

I must have got something wrong in the ‘topping up with fluid’ bit because the whole thing is half extended and stopped. Remote bleed didn’t help. By that point it was getting late and I just wanted to get it closed up and have a cup of tea!

Tomorrow night I’ll hopefully have the chance to do it again. As everything is clean and I ‘know what I’m doing’ hopefully it’ll be quicker. I’ll try and remember to report back.

Tips- a big, rock solid vice helps. Can be done without the grooved soft jaws i.e. normal flat soft jaws but it’s a faff. To get the upper collar off you can clamp it in your frame, works very well.

Definitely want circlip pliers.

Check your spanner fits the collar.

Lay out everything in advance!

My LBS sent mine back to Fisher, they serviced it for I think about £25 maybe get your to do the same? Took a couple of weeks though

FWIW I made some soft jaws for the larger diameter tubes by putting two blocks of 2×4 into a vice and drilling between them. A quick enlargement with a half round rasp and I was done. I like the tip about leaving the post in the frame.

I’m still waiting for the tools from Tweeks (c.f. Tweakie), they have sent me the IFP height setter but as yet they have no confirmed delivery date for the other tools. They do have all the payment though. Grrrrr.

Thanks for the heads-up re; poppet valve going ping, I’ll do that bit with it inside a big polythene bag I think.

Just got mine back from southcoast suspension. £45 Inc return del for a service with seal oring change.
It’s working better than it ever has now!

OK, I had another go tonight. Stripping it down was much quicker second time around, with one exception something had got the IFP stuck right in the top of the upper tube, so cable ties wouldn’t get it out.

If this happens, what you need to do is:
-Make sure the poppet valve assembly is installed at the top
-Mount upper upside down in vice by post head
-Fit inner tube as usual
-Fill inner tube with fluid
-Fit the shaft (air shaft)
-Push down on the shaft at the same time as pushing up on the poppet assembly. This opens the valves and forces fluid through from the inner to the outer, pushing the IFP back up. You will have to hold the inner tube in place.

Anyway, having done all that I reassembled, bled the post. It works, any slop and free travel is gone, but it won’t extend beyond 80mm so I’m assuming I got the IFP in the wrong place somehow.

As a possibly helpful aside, I think you can test post function without having to do a full remote bleed by just pushing down on the poppet valve from the top.

Annnnd third time lucky, it works! There seems to be a mistake in the Rockshox video. When you reinstall the air shaft, the video tells you to push it in just far enough for the o-ring to engage. This isn’t far enough and as a result, when you screw the cap that holds the inner tube, upper and air shaft on, the air shaft head is pushed in further. This (I think) pushes fluid back round the system and lifts the IFP back into a shorter travel position, limiting the post extension.

If you push the air shaft in until the head is just hidden as shown in the cross section (cross section pic), you get everything working as normal.

Hopefully that will save someone the hassle I’ve had!

As swanny says, the positioning of the shaft ‘O’ ring seems critical. It took me four times to get it right.

I now know that the IFP setting tool is just a glorified poking stick thing and the oil height tool could be replaced with a syringe and a short length of plastic tube. Hey ho, such is life.

Ta for that Swanny, thread bookmarked for later reference.

Will need to do this at some point.

Basic service (which is essentially a strip and clean) looks relatively ok. Anything involving taking the top end off looks a total nightmare.

Mine developed a fair amount of fore and aft play after a year or so. It was replaced with a new post by Fishers via an LBS under warranty, so free!

After another 6 months or so, the new post has the same play, so tempted to try the warranty route again. I heard the bushing and collar assembly are pretty expensive, especially considering the price of a new seat post.

and buy a new post for £150

Stealth? Where?

The bushing/ collar is very easy to replace. You will need a big spanner though.

Just for the record, my serviced reverb did two days of riding in cold conditions in the peaks this weekend and is still working, so I think it’s OK!