hey guys, advice needed on fork maintenance.

i can do most stuff on my bike but i have never really played with my forks, always chucked them at TF etc.

the only thing i want to do is a lower leg service which is pretty simple i know but the question i have is related to the correct lubes, not the fork weight and amount, that’s easy to find but when looking at the online vids from SRAM on youtube they use their redrum seal/wiper lube and also have special grease etc.

so i start a little search for redrum lube, nothing, so checked TF tuned and Mojo, TF has “lower lube mix” and Mojo has “fox fluid”, are these both ok as a substitute for redrum?

same thing again with grease, judy butter is mentioned, what do you guys recommend as a substitute there?

again with TF they have some “RSP slick grease”, Fox don’t seem to have an option but i did find some Stendec easy glide fork grease on CRC

all my forks are Rockshox, 2 x Reba’s and a Sektor if it makes any difference to any advice.

singletrack, i await your untold wisdom.

😀

Fox gold 20wt oil 😉

hmm, can’t see that listed, is that just a case of any 20w oil to lube up the seals? i suppose being heavier it sticks to them? i couldn’t find an oil weight on redrum or fox fluid, being honest i didn’t think they were particularly heavy oils ❓

http://www.peterverdone.com/wiki/index.php?title=Suspension_Fluid

knock yaself out.

personally I use maxima racing. but ya man loco is the man in the know

50/50 float fluid and 5wt.. Added advantage of only ever needing 2 types of oil!

float fluid! you must be made of money.. 😉

ok, i looked through the link of oils/weights etc, lot of info there but it doesn’t really answer the question as such (thanks though!)

i assume the fox fluid at £14 rrp is considered expensive? i don’t mind paying for the right (good?) stuff and 8oz/225ml should last reasonably well if it’s just for the seal wipers? so i assume from the above answer from Loco (yes i checked your website 8) ) that running fox fluid is ok in rockshox etc.

so any thoughts on the grease?

I’ve used stendec fork grease where grease is required and rock oil from CRC in the correct flavour with no problems.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/stendec-easy-glide-fork-grease/rp-prod3150
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/rock-oil-svi-suspension-fluid/rp-prod8399

Stendec, bottle of 5wt and bottle of 15wt will do all your forks for less than £20. The 15wt will last for ages just doing lubing the lowers and soaking the rings, depending on volumes you’ll get about 4 damper oil changes out of the 5wt.

float fluid is just gearbox oil pretty much so yes.

A tenner for 250ml? It’s cheaper than a few shots of Sambuca!

80w gear box oil

ok, looking a little deeper, the stendec grease seems to have very mixed reviews, that said, by comparison with the TF rsp grease it’s the same price for 3 times as much, so a bargain?

fox fluid is considered expensive but can be used in rockshox, but it seems people have different thoughts on the oil going in the bottom of the legs, remember i’m only talking lower service here, so effectively only changing the oil in the oil bath, from what i’ve found by scouring the web is that people seem to use lots of different weights regardless of the fork or what the rockshox recommendations are, i was gonna stick to their recommendations.

as far as general suspension oil i tend to use yamaha fork oil form the local motorbike dealer and at just over £5 for 500ml it’s a bargain.

IMG_2220 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

i was hoping to get it all from one supplier for ease so i am leaning towards TF purely because they do a “lower lube” kit that has both lube and grease for £15 (+£5 postage), CRC only has grease at £9 and then fox fluid on top is another £14 from mojo +£2.95 postage), frankly sitting here typing this i’m talking myself into the TF package just for the fact that it’s one purchase but when comparing the amounts versus cost the tf package is actually quite expensive.

get yourself some isoporopanol to clean the lowers out too.

is that the same as disc rotor cleaner?

http://www.superdrug.com/superdrug-care+-surgical-spirit-200ml/invt/642132

it’ll probably be ~70% as they are wussies, so make sure everyting is nice’n’dry before you reassemble

TF package is fine, more so if you’re doing the seals as well and get the kit with seals and rsp grease. Their lower lube mix works perfectly for me. You don’t need bulk buy amounts for lowers as you don’t use much. Uppers however you can use a fair bit, but the recommended weights are different.

And yeah, IPA. Not the beer. Though buy the beer as well, just drink that as you clean 😀

IPA… Maplins.