[Closed] Abnormal wear to Fox Fork Forx Stanchions?

Ouch!

God.

Thats not cable rub.

How old are they? What did you do to look after them?

Thats pretty much par for the course for fox if you don't regularly drop lowers/lift seals.
Service intervals were 20 hours...might be more now.
Let the flaming/octopus/fredathon begin........

That's a result of 'lack of maintainance'

Stantions are ****ed.

Trouble is if you do maintain them it can still happen, but looking at teh pic the wear is a result of lack of oil.

I;m surprised mojo gave them back to you as serviced, normally you'de get a bill for new stantions and bushes.

T

Thats not abnormal.
It happens to everybody who rides their bike and doesn't clean it every 5 minutes.

I've run a set of Fox float 130 RLs for three and a half years with over 3000 miles on them. They've been to Mojo for one sevice at 2 and a half years old and i'm considering a seal service on them again now (at 3 1/2 years) The "secret" is to clean the crap off them after your ride and spray a bit of 3 in 1 silicon spay on them and wipe off the excess. I'm afraid your forks are fit for the bin / or new stanchions 😥

I've run a set of Fox float 130 RLs for three and a half years with over 3000 miles on them. They've been to Mojo for one sevice at 2 and a half years old and i'm considering a seal service on them again now (at 3 1/2 years) The "secret" is to clean the crap off them after your ride and spray a bit of 3 in 1 silicon spay on them and wipe off the excess.

+1. my 140 RLC's are same age. they have had a couple of services at Mojo. they get a gentle wash down with the rest of the bike after every ride and liberal dousing with Fork Juice and a wipe off. If I am not using that bike I turn it upside down for a few hrs every couple of weeks. still good as new.

fox are notorious for it,

to be fair though my 7 year old much abused floats are still fine
and i think all the maintenence ive done is 3 seal changes in that time

I had some 36's kashima coated 2011. Serviced as per fox guidelines, 11 months old... wear on the stantions.

Last two 36's have done the same, now buy RS.

T

You can apply clear nail varnish then wet and dry it to smooth it out to make the surface even.

That seems to be a standard wear point with Fox forks, the dust seals need removing and lubing reasonably regularly. One of the guys we ride with who doesn't fettle his bike at all, had the same happen fairly quickly. I've found that, as well as really looking after them, regularly storing them upside down also helps prelong their life a bit more (it does say that in the manual I think).

[url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/has-this-happened-to-your-fox-forks ]I feel for you.[/url]

Just serviced my Fox F100RL. I've been riding them for over a 15months so was expecting some degree of wear. Clean as a whistle and dust seals still nicely soaked in oil.

I was advised by TFT some time ago, after a similar wear issue on another set of Fox forks, to put a drop or two of wet lube on the wipers after washing and then compressing / cycling the forks to work the oil in.

I have a Spicy with 36 Fox Van and these have a similar degree of wear but still work very well after 3years of abuse.

I have been religiously sticking to the 15 hour maintenance intervals so fingers crossed!

At first I was a little skeptical (especially having not touched my older Fox Forks for years) but when you think of the wear that chains/ cassettes/ chainrings/ etc go through in the winter mud it isn't unreasonable to expect the same from your forks that collect a lot of mud. There's plenty of videos on the web to help and it only takes 30mins or less to get everything cleaned and lubed up again.

when you can pay upwards of 800 quid for a set of forks, id kindof expect them to be able to lube themselves adequately

(infact for 800 quid id expect them to give me oral pleasure and make me a cup of tea afterwards)

What's abnormal about that wear then?

[url= http://service.foxracingshox.com/consumers/Content/Service/QuickTech/Dust_Wiper_Seal_Quick_Clean.htm ]Fox's instruction for a quick foam and wiper clean[/url]

I reckon that damage has been caused by lack of oil, not dirt getting in. Look at the slotted pattern from the bushings.

The only way to prevent this is to keep the oil level good. Either by doing lowers services and changing the oil, or by fitting proper oil seals which keep the oil in the fork - e.g enduro

The issue with foxes tends to be the very small amount of lube oil that does not lube the top bush unless the bike is stored upside down.

However they will continue to work like that - I have a pair with that sort of damage that I bought for pennies and they are still in service now - I did put a lot more oil than standard in them and they do have some slop in the bushes

It seems a common fault on the left hand side of fox forks, i've heard the cause is the disc brakes, every time you pull on the brakes, it moves the forks.[this could be tosh]

As TJ said, they will continue to work provided there are no dents/dings in the stanchions.

Suzuki motorcycles made a lot of noise a few years ago when they released their GSXR range of sportsbikes with DLC forks....Diamond Like Coating.

Think Kashima coating for the MTB equivalent and you get the idea....except DLC was black not gold....anyway, very quickly the coating rubbed off these DLC treated stanchions and looked awful....but testers/journos found no discernible drop in performance and its now just accepted that if you buy a GSXR with DLC forks then the front end of the bike will look like it has leprosy....but it will ride fine.

....needless to say Suzuki dropped the idea pretty quickly and their fork stanchions are back to being bare metal, afterall if there is no coating on them to begin with then the public cant moan about it coming off!

This:

The "secret" is to clean the crap off them after your ride

is what you need to do..

edit: ps I get my Fox forks done about twice a year. I ride on average about 15-20 hrs a wk & a good chunk of that is on my MTB & I have very little ag with my forks. The "secret"? Quoted above, it aint rocket science - look after your gear & your gear will look after you.. 😉

I'd say the secret is to learn how to remove your lowers and change the bath oil - and do this every couple of months. 30min job. This applies to all forks.
I wouldn't bother trying to lift the seals. More hassle than it's worth. Easier to drop the lowers.

And cleaning alone wont prevent stanchion wear. It happens due to the lack of lubrication oil (bath oil) on the bush / stanchion interface.

Cheers

I've got reasonably adept at dropping the lowers off and doing the seal wipe and cleaning the foam wiper seal and re-installing some float fluid as per the common instructions on the web (+5ml of oil to top up each leg).

But I've not got around to swapping the oil completely and have't come across any instructions for that - is it just a case of turning the legs around the other way and have something to catch the old oil?

When I clean mine that includes spraying a little oil onto the stanchions & the seals. Seems to do the trick - takes about 30 seconds to do..

I've got the same query as pedlad.....do you need to do a full oil change or can I drop the lowers, change the seals/foam rings and reassemble. Or should it have fresh oil too?

Fresh oil too, for me. Just let them drain after you undo the nuts but before you take the lowers right off. If your just cleaning the wiper seals and replacing then same oil is ok

Got some Talas forks with some damage on the left stanchion. May sound like a stupid question but can I replace the whole stanchion. If so where could i get a spare or have it replaced? Costs....?

Thanks All - some helpful other not as much!

@ ratswithwings - Mojo charged me £80 for the replacement stanchions + a couple of other bits and pieces that needed replacement. Total cost with service was £240.

(photo were the stanchions which were replaced).

Cheers Dwight

Compared to the equivalent motorcycle stanchions £80 is peanuts, but competition motorcycles can go for decades without such wear with very little maintenance indeed. Ie there's a basic flaw with the Fox set up.

So, following on this, from someone who has never touched a pair of forks in any servicing way, and it seems quite daunting, what can I do to stop this happening? I don't want to have to dismantle the forks but I read about you can pop the top seals off and cycle the forks a few times, which brings up the crap. I tried to lift these seals but it was impossible.

Any decent videos/guides out there on how to do very basic maintenance that will help your forks in the long run. I'd prefer to leave a strip down to a professional!

And can you spray something on forks to alleviate any dirt below? Like a lubricant or something?

Entonox - Member
I'd say the secret is to learn how to remove your lowers and change the bath oil - and do this every couple of months. 30min job. This applies to all forks.

*avoiding the 08-09 wilderness years

Poor maintenance, but they should have fitted the new SKF seals now so you might not have the problem again.

£80 isn't too bad though.

I serviced my forks for the first time in 2 1/2 years recently and they found scratches similar to everyone else's.
Who knows how long they've been there.
Every week there's a post around here about this, but I'm yet to read about somebody having a functional problem with their fork as a result of scratched stanchions.
Please correct me if im wrong but it seems a cosmetic problem to me.

carry a rag in your pocket and give them a wipe every time you stop.

Hi
I concur, definitley bush wear caused by lack of oil.
As most have said above, just store your forks upside down and drop the lowers to clean your seals and top up your oil every 30 hours and you should be fine.
Agree with cleaning around the seals after every ride to stop ingress from dirt also, which can cause similar wear but around the seal and without the tell tale bush striping.

I had a pair with no where near enough oil in each leg and they were brand new. Luckily before using them we fitted travel spacers and were able to sort it out. The same goes with Rock Shox too.

I concur storing them upside down and dropping the lowers every 30 riding hours is the best way to protect them from this dry bush or dirt ingress problem

it is because of this that i will never buy fox forks.

how can you be expected to service your forks every 15-20 hours? that is every thrid ride!

and i don't thik the kashima coating does anything to improve the situation.

Rock Shox for me.

only times i've got marks on RS stanchion is when i let the lower oil run dry first year i had rebas - left ring partly around stanchion from bush edge, always expected that to get worse after i started servicing properly but it never changed. and then, when some sharp grit got between wiper and stanchion that really ****ed them up.

other than these cases RS coatings (and bushes) do seem to last very well..
Never owned a Fox fork, too expensive, but if you really want long service intervals take a look at Pace?

Maybe if you have older Fox change to RS wipers, isn't that what some shops do?

Though this looks like the coating just isn't hard enough and/or it's running dry against the bush.
Also:
No idea why most forks say to use damper oil in lowers.. fork oil is not particularly a lubricant?, try a fully synth motor oil like Mobil1 5w-30, clings to metal much better and shouldn't damage rubber/plastic. This specifically was recommended to me by someone who should know what he's doing..

Do Fox forks use foam rings? not sure, but might help keep lube up there.

That's about all I can think of, but if yours already ****ed see how much Fox CSU cost, RS not worth it.

It's so simple to do the basic foam ring lube service on fox forks.
That and cleaning and they will last as long as any other forks
I still have floats from 2003 that work fine and have the coating intact

thats completely normal for fox..

Happened to my fox floats too, non driveside like that too

After servicing my fox forks (2007 36 talas) on a regular basis, I have still got some wear to stanctions,I am now going to Marzochi, as the open bath coil spring seems better suited for reliability.I think Fox would do well to get this problem sorted even if it means adding a bit more weight its much better to have a reliable product at the prices they quote.

I've got 10 year old Manitou XVerts that have never been opened that look fine. No doubt the Fox forks are "better" to ride but really.....