i think I’ve decided to go for it when I get back from holiday and buy an rct3 charger damper for my Yari, and put in either a debonair 2019 airspring or a luftkappe at the same time (depends if I can find a 2019 airspring in stock or not at 160/170mm travel.
I’d say i’m a reasonably competent home mechanic, I can build up bikes / setup gears / bleed brakes and recently built a new pair of wheels.
How hard would changing out the moco damper for a charger be, and either changing an airspring or fitting a luftkappe to the existing one?
I have a bike torque wrench / decent Allen keys / bench vice etc. I understand I’ll need a pair of circlip pliers / clamp for the airshaft (if luftkappe). Any other tools?
The fork is just over a year old so I’ll need replacement oil for the lower legs and some grease - presumably new seals and new foam rings. Anything else?
swapping damper is very easy, just unscrew it with a casette tool pop in a new one
may have to adjust oil height
luftkappe, bit more involved
allen keys to remove footnuts, pull off legs
circlip pliers to open up air chamber (carefully)
£1 ebay golf clamps in a bike workstand to hold shaft, while you break threadlock unscrewing air piston, replace luftkappe with new threadlock, to torque, grease with slickhoney, reassemble, , replace legs, fresh fork oil do up footnuts
Just got the 2019 debonair air shaft today (tf tuned).
Will update with how it is in comparison to the standard (Lyrik not Yari though) once it’s fitted and ridden.
Damper change would be simple (as would the air shaft change):
Remove lowers then it would just be a case of undoing the compression adjuster, undoing the compression top cap and taking out the compression damper. Pour the oil out. Take off the circlip from the bottom of the upper and remove the rebound piston. Give it a clean then screw the charger damper in from the top of the crown.
They look to come with oil and bleed kit so you might have to bleed it prior to installing though. Again it’s not hard with the bleed kit, just take your time to get rid of all the air.
Its easier to change the foam rings in the lowers than try and clean them and re use them. Depending how used / worn the seals are you might not need to change straight away.
Good thing about sram is that the service manuals will all be online and are easy to use.
All the the above said, I would be tempted to do one thing at once (it’s a bit of a pain pulling the lowers off again) but you might find that you are happy with just the air shaft change or vice Versa the damper change. And the damper is not at all cheap!
Pretty easy I’d say. The damper just lifts out, I use a 24mm (I think) socket, if you’ve ever home serviced them you’ve already done it.
Ive never worked on a charger, did I read they have to be bled? Anyway look into that, because it may come dry.
Luffkappe fitting is tricky - the circlip is a PITA and you need to be reasonably careful not to damage the shaft or stanctions when you remove / refit it. You need to dissemble the air spring, but you just follow the instruction video on the Vosprung site in conjunction with the pictorial instructions on the SRAM site.
I’d never worked on RS forks when I did mine and never done anymore than a lower service on any fork. I competed a full service and fitted the Kapp in 2 hours. You need a good area to do it. I’ve got a bench made from a kitchen worktop which is perfect. I used the golf grip thing and lots of boiling water to remove the old head and it took a while, you can buy a clamp if you want, but as I don’t have a vice anyway it wasn’t really worth it.
I’m good with buying the damper as I think it’s the moco that’s hokding the fork back more than anything. I could just do that at this stage and a general service of the fork and see how that changes things.
Luftkappe sounds a bit tricky / more likely to go wrong - from the above I think I’d prefer to get the 2019 debonair shaft when there is one available in stock somewhere.
Or buy a new air shaft from TFTuned with it fitted and sell yours if its in good enough nick to someone who wants to alter their travel.
New air shafts are now in stock. The circlip can be a pain, particularly to get back on the old style as it has a bit of a lip that you have to get the circlip centralised around but the new one no longer has this. Even then with patience it’s fine.
I bought some some cheap circlip pliers from China on eBay that are slightly serrated. They are great for getting the circlip off as the circlip doesn’t slip off them. Then I just use a standard pair to get the circlip back on.
Thats a cunning plan getting an air shaft (old style) with luftkappe pre fitted but will cost more money which I’m trying to avoid. Will order up a damper and airshaft (new style) if in stock ready for when I’m back from holiday.
Will order oil / grease / new seals / new foam rings at the same time. That way I shouldn’t then need to open up the forks at all for a while - assuming I do it all correctly!
Just installed the new air shaft. Hard to say how much an improvement it is on stiction as I have obviously renewed the oil / grease but the fork was only 3 rides old. That said it definitely feels plusher with a lot less breakaway on the seals. Hopefully they that’s down to the new shaft rather than having hardly any oil in from the factory.One of the foam rings was pretty dry but a reasonable amount of oil came out of both the lowers.
I did notice a bit of a dead spot in the damper at full extension when cycling it so bled that and there’s much more of a difference in the way the compression feels (it did next to nothing before).
Will know now more when taken for a proper ride but pressure will have to go up at least 10 psi over the old air shaft and hopefully the damper will feel better for having no air in it.
I would change the oil weight before the damper. The MOCO works fine as its fundamentally just a shim stack and needle like anything else, but it can be a bit over-damped even when wide open. I'd swap the 5W for some 3W and see how you go.
Hi Ben thanks for the comment. I spoke with tf tunes and they suggested that as I’m running the damper wide open already a lighter oil will make very little difference at all. They actually suggested probably the best thing to put in is a charger 1 (which hey can’t get anymore) as they think it’s better made than the charger 2.
They suggested the charger was less adjustable but more reliable than the Fast Yariup that they sell so it depends how much fast rocky abuse they get as to which is a better option.
In my case it’s 3 or so uplift days a year where they get the most abuse - for the rest of the year it’s mostly trail centre stuff.
to add: I wish I’d not been so tight when I specced my bike with a non boost Yari and just stumped up for a boost Lyrik!