Got some pikes a few months ago and loved them, (160mm RT3 ) riding today and they didn't feel right but couldn't put my finger on the reason, happened to look at the sag indicator when I was off the bike and the fork is sat into 20mm of travel with no load on it???
I had fox forks do something similar years ago so I emptied all the air, compressed the fork completely and pumped up to 80 psi and tried and still sat into near 20mm!!! I can hold the lower legs and pull up on the bars and extend the travel to 160mm but a "vacuum" type feeling pulls them back into the travel!!! Any ideas before I send them off for repair.
Thanks for anything constructive.
Negative chamber transfer port blocked not allowing the chambers to equalise.
Strip, clean & regrease should sort it or return for warranty repair to retailer
Cheers loco , it may be quicker if I just sent them to you and paid , any idea how much and who to post them with???
Hermes, insured to value, seems to the favourite with customers at the moment
Any idea how much? Will help me decide regards warranty route? Thanks
I had the same thing happen with my pikes, pumped them up to the max limit (150psi IIRC?) and cycled it a few times and it went up to 160mm travel again, Let the air down and it's been fine for a couple of months now.
Yep try that first ^.
You'd be looking £20 labour plus return postage as the it'd be a lower service as well as the air spring strip
Thanks guys will try that and if not will be in the post Tuesday to loco!!!
Gutted!!! tried taking the pressure up to 140 psi, got full travel. Ridden round a bit let the pressure back down to 75psi back into 20% sag!!!
Try it a few times it had this on my revs too, and also pull at the lowers with no air at all in, it helped mine release the negative pressure in the lowers, just basically empty the air and pull as hard as you can at the lowers, worked for me
Mine were absolutly fine after that I don't think you'll need to send them in have a play with them
Thanks will try tomorrow
My revs did the same. Turn them upside down and undo the nut from the airside leg. You'll see a valve. This is the negative chamber I believe. Depress the valve and release the air just watch for oil.
By no means a cure for any blockages but did this to mine and they've been fine since.
Did a strip and clean on the wife's revs with same problem And they've been good too.
Thanks again
Do NOT do willy's suggestion.
The Pike is different the neg chamber is the lower part of the air damper on the air side.
Ok I've not tried it yet anyway. Cheers
I'll get them off and send them away this week, not great only 10 ish rides old
Mine did the same and I spoke to loco.
His suggestion was to ride it hard.
(I have changed the air damper and had grease in the port).
Ran hard down the final descent of the blade.
It fixed it.
I've e mailed rockshox who said try letting the air out and pulling hard up on the bars whilst hold down the legs until it lets the pressure equilize.
Got the same problem with mine 🙁 started when I was playing with the bottomless tokens. My LBS has contacted Rockshox who suggested letting all the air out then pushing the fork to the bottom of it's travel, partially filling with air and cycling the fork through it's travel a few times then pumping up to the correct pressure.No joy, also pumped it up to 150 psi and cycled it up and down with no joy. It's with my LBS at the mo for a strip down as per LoCo's advice. If they can't sort it it's off to see Simon at LoCo as I need the bike for a foreign trip early next week.
I'm going Spain in a 8 weeks and my concern is it happening again
If it's just the port being blocked with grease and hard riding clears it then it sounds like people need to grow a set 😉
had similar with my 2013 Reba's. LBS sent them back and all fine since. I had tried all of the above suggestions (apart from taking things apart) first, to no avail. Took in to LBS on a Monday, had them back Thu, and done under warranty
Well it seems the problem is grease in a groove in the internals and not a blocked hole as such. Sorted and ready to collect tomorrow. LBS got the info from Rockshox to sort it. Result
Sorry but unless I'm mistaken there is no groove inside and they aren't being totally honest.
I've stripped my air damper and negative side while changing my damper rod.
The air damper slides inside a tube which has no groove in it.
Loco will confirm if I'm wrong.
Only what my LBS said, will see tomorrow if its sorted. Otherwise it's a trip to Wales and LoCo for me
Stripping mine off tonight, sram/fishers keep telling me to get me LBS to strip them it's easy!!!
My reply was "if they damage something will it still be warranty " and they have now stopped reply to my e mails.
Fozzybear you are wrong I'm afraid. It will have a dimple like this in it:
[img] 
[/img]
That's the port that fills the neg chamber.
Suppose it could be a dimple or a groove.
Well at least it's a simple fix. Cheers for the info Rick 8)
Update!!! Sram/rockshox have requested the forks back to investigate so back to fishers for repair.
Picked the bike up this morning, set the sag to 30%. Back to normal. Thanks to James at my LBS and Sram/rockshox/Fishers for their technical input. How long will you be without your forks Chris? Hope all goes well with your repair.
LBS say sram/fisher warrenty is fantastic so should be turned around in a week. Not sure why but sram wanted to see the fault and asked LBS no to investigate. Strange as ^ Dave had his repaired with sram advice???
LBS were great for me,as @ Rick says sorted the problem. Bought motorcycles off them for ever. They started selling bicycles a few years ago. Same professional attitude. Love Em 😆
I had the exact same problem with my RockShox PIKE RCT3 Solo Air 2014 (160 mm, 26"), it went down to 20% sag with no load. I tried pulling the front wheel with no air in the fork, and tried cycling the fork with 140 PSI. No luck with any of those, but after [b]pulling the wheel with 140 PSI[/b] I heard a whistling sound, and the fork became fully extended. After setting the pressure back to 75 PSI the problem was solved.
Thanks a lot for all the advice in this post!
Thread revival.... Same problem tonight on a set of 150mm RCT3. Anyone have a step by step guide to cleaning said port if all the other suggestions fail!?
Kind of same problem for my 160mm Pike Solo Air. Bought it a month ago from Germany and from the beginning the air pressure i used to get a sag around 25% was way off the one recommended by RS. Geared up i weigh 190lbs and the recommended psi for my weight is 80-85. Yet, i go down as much as 50 psi to get 25% sag. After cycling the fork at different pressures, even going up to 150 psi with no luck, i decided to open clean and rebuild the air spring. Needless to say that there was way too much red lube in there. After cleaning and regreasing i pressurised at 30psi, cycled the fork and i got the characteristic psssst sound of equalization. So i guess the dimple is now open (if it ever was blocked). But if i run the fork at 80 psi (recommended one) the fork feels like a pongo stick. There is no way i can run it at this pressure and get even 80% of the travel. Not to mention that the small bump sensitivity is absolutely absent (weird for a fork known for its suppleness). When i ran it at 50 psi i can get almost full travel but then again i dont feel like the fork is as supple as it should... Could the RS pressure table printed on the lower be that way off/wrong (30 psi for me)? Is there a possibility that an overdamped Charger Damper could be the reason for this? I think i have done everything i could (in regards to the air spring side) to resolve this but i have no luck.. Does any of you experienced guys have any idea what to do next?
Could just be your pressure gauge is faulty, can you verify your gauges accuracy, got another you could try?
Dirtydog i got two pumps,same numbers from both..
Hmmm.... I think I have the same problem.
Brand new Rev 120mm (29er) SoloAir.
With no air in, it's sat right down in its travel. As I add air the fork extends. By the time I get to the recommended pressure for my weight it's at about 105mm. Add a bit more air and it goes right out to 120mm.
Reading some of the advice above, I reckon this port/groove/thingy is blocked. I'll try cycling it a few times with and without air in it. If that doesn't work I'll put enough air in to get full travel and go for a ride. If [u]that[/u] doesn't work I'll send them back for repair.
^^ Have you got any bottomless tokens in? They reduce the airspace so you would need less pressure. My Pikes have failed again and have been at Fishers for nearly three weeks 🙄 Hope they will be back this week, had the use of a demo Orange 5 RS and the pikes on that don't work as they should.The open ,locked and pedal on the right fork leg does nothing at all. Never had a problem with my flexy Fox forks. Been looking at an Avalanche upgrade for the forks,all new internals.
That's marvellous I've just pulled the pin on a set of 160 dual positions from Tf Tuned I hope it's not that common a fault 🙁
Don't TF strip/check/fettle all the stuff they sell before they ship it out? Could have been a very wise move buying from TF...
No tokens for me
stamion...
I have the exact sample problem... did you get a solution to this??
dan
stamion did you sort it?
Apologies for slight hijack but is there any discernible difference in performance between the basic RC model and the posher ones? I've heard differing reports. And do the Pikes generally benefit from bedding in or is out-of-the-box as good as they get? Ta.
