What’s recommended for lubricatiion for the foam soaker rings under the Recon Coil seals and what actually just works….light chain oil, proper fork oil of some kind or flipping the bike upside down for a couple of hours?
Suffered with a bit of stiction this morning so cleaned the bike and stantions and flipped it over for a while…..seems smooth as butter again just wondering if I should prise off the top seals and put something extra in.

Fork oil for foam rings. It is designed for use in the sealed parts of forks. Certain ingredients of chain lube and regular grease can cause the wiper seals themselves to swell and accelerate wear. The fork manufacturer will recommend a fork oil, but you don’t need to worry about brand. Use the same oil on the foam rings as in the lowers (makes sense when you realise they will interact).

Fork oil really does seem to be a different beast to the other oils you use on a bike. It is so much more viscous and sticky. Don’t spill it on a surface you like and don’t wear clothes that you like. It is very, very good at sticking around.

I’ve found that foam rings clean up really well, so unless they are disintegrating I would re-use them.

It sounds like you need to do a lower leg service. Don’t worry about brand of fork oil, fork grease etc, just make sure it is suitable in the wider sense of the word.

Rockshox coil recons are very simple. This is a good thing!

By the way, when you say ‘praise off the top seals’ you do realise that you can’t do this without taking the lowers off, don’t you? Trying to prise them up the stanchions might do a lot of damage. Lower leg service is quite easy. You can’t really do anything wrong as such because fork components are engineered to close tolerances, you can’t really reassemble it wrongly.

Fork servicing is daunting (at least it was for me) at first. But compared to the costs and downtime of sending the fork away (or neglecting and having to replace it) a lower leg service 2-4 times a year is not a chore.

Damper servicing etc is not required anything like as often. I neglected my coil recons badly, and ultimately paid the price, but the oil in the compression damper still had its colourant when the oil in the lowers looked like the stuff in the engine pit at a garage.

Do a proper lower leg service and you will have peace of mind.

Thanks, I have just found a yoochoob clip on how to do it so I shall go get the bits and have a crack at it over the Christmas break.

Yes, I found the key was to set a decent amount of time aside and do it properly and methodically.

A few tips.

Do clean the fork down. It’s a bugger cleaning out the lowers to accidentally knock a lump of shite from the top of the fork down into them.

You may have to give the lower bolts a fair whack to free the lowers. Don’t be afraid of this. You really need to be sure both sides are free as you don’t want to pull the push rods down as this can dislodge seals and o rings up in the damper if you lose your rag and start pulling. You will know when both sides are free as filthy oil will start dropping out.

A hope freehub seal setting tool is perfect for installing new wiper seals if you are replacing them.

The SRAM tech centre vids on YouTube are good. As is the MBR how-to.

Depending on the year and model of your forks you might be shocked at how little you add to the lowers. My rebas only take 5ml in each lower. When you consider what you are asking the oil to do, it becomes apparent how the oil becomes depleted and degraded over time.