So I think I need to replace the air valves in my forks. Can I use any old schrader valve or is there something special about the valves used in shocks and Forks?

The reason I think they need replacing is that I get air leaking out when I detach my shock pump- No its not the normal air loss used to register the pressure on the valve its actually releasing the air from the forks- if I don’t undo the pump quickly enough I can empty the entire air ‘reservoir’ and no its not the pump- it works perfectly on my fox shock and the same thing happens with another pump.

I’ve used ones from tubes before without problems.

You can remove the core from a Schraeder valve if you’re careful with a pair of fine radio/needle-nosed pliers. Release the pressure on the forks first though!!

or a valve core remover does it pretty well.

my old nokian inner tubes had a core remover built into the dust cap

They are exactly the same.

I had exactly the same thing a while ago, the tiny pube of rubber seal had broken, a new core from an old tube fixed it 🙂

Just the same thing happened when my shock pump partially unscrewed a valve in my rear shock: (i think I didn’t need to screw it on much once the needle went up to pressure) little dab of lube and screwed it back in again.

Ok great I’ve got plenty of old tubes lying around, I’ll steal one from that. I was a little concerned that it might be a special valve to avoid air loss when unscrewing the pump.