A friend is trying to resurrect an old Gary Fisher MTB which is fitted with a pair of Judy XLs which are apparently ‘seized’. They’ve asked me to look at the forks and I tried to dissuade them i.e. age of forks, difficulty finding parts etc. I haven’t seen them yet – apparently the stanchions are clean/shiny.
I’ve found the manual online plus some youtube clips, but am I really setting myself up for a mare of a job?

A fair few years ago I stripped a set of Judy XCs.
They were fine on the stanchions that you could see. Once they were apart though the hidden part of the stanchions were devoid of coating so I suspect this is why they might have seized. I managed to get them working to a degree but I didn’t use them on a bike again and someone had them for a hack bike.

If it’s 1 1/8″ A-Head frame then probably the best thing to do is to check CRC for brand new Recon Silver Air, version for V-brakes. A friend of mine recently got them on his Gary Fisher, replacing Bombers which totally stopped damping the rebound. Massive improvement on the bike for very little money!