I have had my Rockshox recon 351 solo air forks for nearly 18 months. The other day I noticed that the damping on my forks was gone and they clunked as the legs extended. There is no play in the forks, there are no scratches and I'm no 'extreme' rider.

I have never had them serviced and was astonished to find that you're looking at £85 just for a service (I could MOT my car for two years for that price).

My LBS recons the oil parts need replacing – which could apparently cost upto £200, including service.

There is a seal kit available from some shops for about £22 and I'm an OK mechanic – can anyone diagnose my fork problem and could the seal kit help!

Please help!

If I have to pay £200 to fix this…well I'll probalby sell up and ride my road bike more; annual fork service £0.

al

Recon solo air forks are a doddle to fix , I did some for a mate (damping side) 6 months ago. Just be very methodical and keep everything clean.make sure you have a reasonable set of circlip pliers before you start.

All the the info you need to repair them is on the rockshox/sram website and there's a few 'how to do it' vids on youtube if you need some extra encouragement.

Thanks carlsog,

appreciate the reply, but wondered if you had heard of this problem before and what it could be.

If you want them fixed check out Loco suspension tuning:

http://www.locotuning.co.uk/

They'll do a full service, including the Loco Moco special seal upgrade for £69. It's a steal at that price, I'm picking mine up from them tonight – really nice chap that runs it too. He'll do a bit more than just a standard service, he'll inspect any manufacturing defects etc…

Personally, I dont like servcing my forks myself, I have done – but i dont have a super clean environment, and it only takes a bit of grit or dirt to get in the internals to do some real damage.

Cheers

Ricks

The forks I fixed didn't have a top out clunk , their problem was a lack of travel due to one of the lower seals going and most of the oil in the damper migrating into the lower leg so travel stopped after about 20mm when the fork reached the migrated oil.