As above, a LOT of water managed to get into my seat tube via the hole for the hose and it seems my reverb sucked it up. After cycling it a few times it spat it out again and has been okay since, but is there something I should be doing? Is it full of delicate steal parts all now rusting? It’s only 6 weeks old bless it.

Why would the reverb suck it up?

bruneep – Member

Why would the reverb suck it up?

I’m as surprised as you.

Full story. Shitty wet day in the alps, took to the hose-down area at the bottom of the lift which involved hanging the bike from the front wheel.

My bike has a sort of ‘semi stealth’ set-up, the hose comes out of a hole at the bottom of the seat tube – this hole is much bigger than the hose (there’s meant to be a bung, but it’s long gone) and let in a lot of water.

Without thinking too much about it I raised the seat to hose down the underside of the saddle, thought no more of it, took it back ‘home’ and it spent the night in the garage.

Next morning the seat wouldn’t go down, wtf? I argued with it for a bit before finally it went down, and a load of dirty water came spraying out of the hole in the seat tube. I sounded a bit shitty for a bit, but for the most part is good as it’s ever been since, but I’m wondering if I should strip, clean and oil it.

I assumed it was a sealed unit like a fork, but the above makes me think it’s takes and returns air to the seat tube when it works.

I wondered how you got the water high enough in the seat tube for the Reverb to suck it up. If it were mine I’d be stripping it or sending it for service, more because of the muck that may have gone in with the water than the water alone

if it’s a pressurised unit at 200psi i can’t see how it can suck up air ?

iainc – Member

if it’s a pressurised unit at 200psi i can’t see how it can suck up air ?

God knows, but they do seem too, when mine is in action you can hear the air wooshing in the tubes, another poster (there’s a few threads about Reverbs today) can hear air escaping via the headset.

if it’s a pressurised unit at 200psi i can’t see how it can suck up air ?

The inner post (the part that moves) contains all the pressurised gubbins, but slides up and down inside the outer post (the bit that clamps in the seat tube). As it does this, the air it displaces comes in/out through a breather hole in the bottom of the outer post. There’s a felt washer inside that’s supposed to keep dirt out.

If the OP has managed to get water in there (particularly if the post was tilted so the top was lower than the bottom), the water will have got into the grease in the sliding part of the tube.

It may be OK, but the safest option would be to strip and re-grease. On a standard post, all the necessary seals, etc are in the basic service kit (~£10) and doesn’t require any messing with the hydraulics. Hopefully the Stealth is similar (I think there is a video for it on the SRAM site).

(This is the procedure for a standard post:)

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w0X0-AOhRA[/video]