pike 454 airs locke...
 

[Closed] pike 454 airs locked permanently - anyone had this?

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just popped out for a quick ride and found that my pikes (454 airs, bought new earlier this year and only used maybe 6 - 10 times) had little to no travel. the fork top lock on lever makes no difference either way, its like they are permanently locked on.

i did note though that when they did compress a tiny bit over a bump they really knocked, could've sworn that when locked on previously they had a bit of give.

they were fine a few days ago when i last rode and i've made no adjustments nor fiddled with them since.

before i call the place i got them from in the morning and go through the hassle of stripping them off the bike and posting back just wondered if anyone else had experienced this and maybe knew what may be causing it?


 
Posted : 23/09/2009 5:15 pm
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My guess.......
blown seal has dumped all the oil from the damper into the lowers. Have you ridden off any big drops with the lockout on?

or........
swarf in the compression circuit, this would have been more likely on the first ride though.


 
Posted : 23/09/2009 5:18 pm
 nuke
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My similar experience (as per spoon's guess)...

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/2-month-old-fork-faultywhat-would-you-do


 
Posted : 23/09/2009 5:21 pm
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aha, i had a similar thing with oil dropping into the lowers on some old manitous and it feels exactly like that. cheers for reminding me.

i'll send them back (and juding from some of the comments on nuke's thread i may as well pop some winter tyres on the hard tail and forget about riding the full suss til next spring).

no big drops, really light usage (only put on the bike in mid july). i've hardly ridden this year, the bike has literally been spun around my local field loop and maybe one or two rides up on the moors. nothing drastic at all.


 
Posted : 23/09/2009 5:33 pm
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The same happened to my Recons 351 Airs. I've just had the internals on the compression side replaced under warranty. Apparently this is a fairly common problem with some recent Rockshox air forks. Get the supplier to send it back to Fisher and get it sorted under the warranty.


 
Posted : 23/09/2009 6:16 pm
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Apparently this is a fairly common problem with some recent Rockshox air forks

thanks, i'll mention that when i call the shop.


 
Posted : 23/09/2009 6:19 pm
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Yep hapened to mine as well, blown seal on the damper leakes oil into the fork leg and you get hydrolic lockout


 
Posted : 23/09/2009 6:28 pm
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I had the opposite problem, the lockout simply stopped working.

The seal around the compression damper is a known weak spot. Send them to TF Tuned who will be able to modify the seal assembly so that it doesn't reoccur.

To be fair, it's the only glitch I've had in three and a half years of running Pikes. My old Pace forks beat that statistic within six weeks!


 
Posted : 23/09/2009 8:38 pm