I treated myself to a new stumpy to run along side my 07 epic, after the first ride out I was dead pleased with the bike and how well the rear shock worked in both propedal and lockout.
Fast forward two rides and I noticed that when locked out the rear shock was still moving, to the point that if I locked out the shock then sat on the bike the shock moved through all of the sag travel and if you loaded up the suspension you can get the shock to move upto five mm of its travel.
When new I didn't notice it doing this so returned the shock to the LBS that I had it from who in turn returned it to mojo. It came back with no fault found and that the customer (me) was not using the lockout correctly as I had the rebound set too fast. I didn't think that rebound setting had any effect on lockout.
Since it was returned the shock is very noisy in operation ( sounds like oil/air squishing through a small hole) to the point that the lads that I'm riding with being able to here it when they are following me!
My questions are.
1 How well should the lockout work?
2 How noisy are the triad's in normal operation?
Cheers for any experience that the STW peep's may have on this.
Ade
There is a blow off in the shock, so if constant pressure is put on the shock in lockout it will sag. It needs the blow off to protect the internals of the shock. The shock will make some noise at the first part of the stroke, its float fluid passing through the port on the air sleeve (like you said kinda) from positve to negative side. If the propedal and open postions are working, I'd say the shocks working fine.
What Frosty said.
I've got the same bike.
I've not used the lockout while riding yet, but have heaved my weight onto the saddle while tinkering just to see how solid it is. It moves a fair amount - definitely several mm.
As for the squishing, I haven't noticed any noise when riding along but i haven't really been paying too much attention. I've got mine currently set to about 160psi & towards the slower end of the rebound. I reckon I weight 80kg inc. kit.
Have you noticed any oil on the shock piston at all after riding? I have almost every time I've ridden it. I'm taking it out tomorrow so will be keeping a close eye on it. MBR have got one as a long termer & it lost it's oil & damping on it's first proper outing....
Hope there's not some kind of reliability issue? I'm just gonna keep track of it - I figured initially that it might just be excess oil from manufacture....
Oil on the shaft or body tube (visible outside the shock) would indicate worn air seals in the air can allowing the float fluid from the air can to leak out.
Generally if the damper 'pops' the oil will exit through the adjusters.
However this will be pretty obvious as the shock will become like a pogo stick.
Some float fluid on the shaft is normal after a ride, the seals are designed to run wet. But it will need replacing i.e air sleeve servicing. If the triad shock does loose damper fluid, not float fluid which is used to lube the air seals in the air sleeve the blue lever will turn without resistance or become locked in one position.