So I was having a mess about the other day looking at my forks and notced that there was still a good amount of grease in the air spring (sram butter). however i decided to add about 3ml of fork oil to the air chamber. Oh my goodness. its sooo much better. Its just brilliant! Now i know that it specifies to use a drop of fork oil with the rockshox dynamic grease but i was under the impression it was because the grease was a lot stickier (like an assembly grease) so have i been doing it wrong all these years?
I don't think it's an official SRAM instruction to put a bit of lube oil.
I've always regarded this is a bit of a pro-tip.
This is going to be good - it has puzzled me how the latest forks (20 & 21?) appear to require the dynamic seal grease and oil for the air spring but previous generations was just SRAM butter or equivalent. I wonder if anyone actually knows why?
I think the latest service manual has either method as options with no statement as to which should be applied.
Oil is typically going to offer less friction but the risk is always going to be that it gets through the transfer port and reduces the negative air spring volume.
One of the reasons I'm now considering a fork that doesn't use a self balancing air spring arrangement.
What's considered the oil migrating to the negative air chamber when I first started doing this.
I've used stendec slick grease for a long time., adding 1 ml of synthetic 0w 30 basically gets absorbed into the grease and makes it thinner overall, but not so thick that it might grates to the negative spring
Totally agree. It's finding the balance between thin enough to feel slick and think enough to not migrate
i can imagine that the oil would eventually (quicte quickly) move to the negative spring volume. but due to the reduced volume and the oils much lower viscosity i would imagine it can splash on the walls easier?
i get the need to use it with the dynamic grease as thats a lot thicker than the slicolium stuff. .
It feels much better as the seal is constantly lubricated.
Fox used to use 3cc of float fluid, now gold in the fork air chamber.
RockShox was Sram butter, now Dynamic Seal grease and oil.
It does migrate though but you're supposed to do a lower leg service every 50 hours and it's not hard to give the air spring a freshen up. I seem to remember seeing the 2020 air spring instructions saying it needs some oil internally on the bottom of the shaft anyway to lubricate the seal.
im 100% sold on it now. obviously been missing a trick.
So just remove the value core and squirt in 3ml of oil?
yea pretty much. although its easier to take the top cap off tbh
I went to a Sram presentation in Whistler, and they stated that while the Slickoleum (Sorry....Sram Butter) feels better in the short term, the DSG stays in place longer. And yes, the 3ml of oil will potentially migrate after a while, but the lower leg service that one is meant to do stops the likelihood of ending up with too much bath oil if it goes through the lower seal. If one stays on top of lower leg services, one could of course carry on with Slickoleum and do the oil trick too.
This is interesting. I will try it I reckon. I don’t think there’s much chance it’ll migrate into the lowers, but it will almost certainly end up mostly in the negative spring and occupy some of the volume. Shouldn’t be a huge issue if only 1ml ish is used though.
I think there is probably a compromise that RS make forks for everyone, including the majority who, I’d guess, have 200+ hours between any servicing (let alone the air spring). If you’re a tinkerer and strip your forks every 20 hours of riding then you can probably afford to use different oils/grease.
I used to do this with my old revelations (separate pos and neg chambers) and my Xfusion Slants (coil neg) Not done it with my pikes because I thought the oil would migrate but then perhaps 1ml is a small volume so unlikely to cause problems
Fox used to recommend a bit of the blue Float fluid in the air spring. Not sure if this is still the case.
Im fully aware of the old tricks but the difference with this has blown me away tbh.
So would this work with a dual position pike too?