[Closed] Should I service these forks or buy new?

New forks possibly. Have you ever done a lowers service? If not, the chances are the stanchions are worn.

I'd sell em and get some new ones

DIY service for about £15 worth of stuff.

The problem I have with replacing them is does anyone still make 80mm forks?

Rock shox do I think. Or get some 2nd hand marzocchis and you'll never need to service them

Or get some 2nd hand marzocchis and you'll never need to service them

Absolute twaddle. Oil is the same and degrades the same way no matter what fork it's in you know!

DIY service for about £15 worth of stuff.

+1

Its a pretty simple process for Fox RL's. Open them up and give them a good clean and change the seals. Your stantions may well be perfectly fine, mine were 6 years old and showed no signs of wear.

Absolute twaddle. Oil is the same and degrades the same way no matter what fork it's in you know!

If your an amateur you use oil, I run water in mine.

But seriously, you can leave marzocchis for years without having to touch them, unlike fox which are meant to have a lowers service every 20 hours or something. Thats once per day!

my 8yr old z1 freerides have never been serviced

my 8yr old z1 freerides have never been serviced

Exactly, and thats coming from a guy that knows how to ride a bike properly.

I think certain people need to spend less time mincing about, worrying about oil degredation and spend more time learning how to ride properly.

Pull them to bits and have a looksee.

Chances are if they are not spitting oil out the seals, You might just have to strip them, clean and put new oil in. I never serviced a fork before, had a go recently and it is indeed not that difficult. Just take it easy for the first time and You'll be fine. Saves You sending them out for couple of days and paying £80-90.

At the risk of feeding the troll, how does riding ability have a bearing on product servicing (or lack of). Is it because he's sooo smooth his forks dont move?
Oh and Jedi, if your forks have never been serviced, how do you know that the stanchions aren't worn paper thin at the lower bushing and may be about to collapse?
All this nonsense about never servicing things is just that. Would you drive a decent car for 8years without a badic fluids service? Didn't think so.

All this nonsense about never servicing things is just that. Would you drive a decent car for 8years without a badic fluids service? Didn't think so.

I would, but they never seem to last that long 😳

Exactly, and thats coming from a guy that knows how to ride a bike properly.

IME, its the conditions the forks are used in, for the length of time they're used, that shortens the service interval the most.

Whilst extreme riding styles will break the oil down quicker through heat and large shear forces through the damping apertures, penetration of water, mud and debris is of far greater concern.

i know cos they have not collapsed!

From a guy that runs skills courses, that's a pretty poor show.
The 1st thing you should tell customers on skills courses is to make sure their equipment is in good condition so they can rely on it not to let them down.
Confidence in the bike is a big part of skills tuition. And proper maintenance is a key element of that.
You undermine that in your post, by stating you've not serviced your fork for 8 years!
By adopting this attitude, you are letting your customers down.
If your fork broke while you taught jump technique and you were left unconscious, would you expect your customers to bail you out of a situation you created by not carrying out some simple maintenance?

You need to get a grip buddy. Litigation is a growth industry, and it's waiting for nice bits of info like your previous admission to chew you up and spit you out.

I seriously hope you never get any claims made against you, but cover your butt mate, there's a lot of sharks out there ready to take advantage.

thank you for that insight.

Forks are not going to colapse because you have not serviced them. You may get crap damping performance and they may leak oil but the stanchions are not going to wear paper then and colapse.

The worn anodising on a fork is only a few microns thick, it does not add to the structral integrity at all, just makes them lower friction.

Bazzer

PS I have heard Sam Hill uses Sudacreme on his Boxxers 🙂

bazzer - Member
The worn anodising on a fork is only a few microns thick, it does not add to the structral integrity at all, just makes them lower friction.

I've been told that the issue is that the anodizing is very hard compared to the bare aluminium underneath and the rate of wear increases vastly once the anodizing has been worn through. Wether it's truly an issue I don't know

Jeez, talk about making a mountain out of a molehill here!

You'd know if there were structural issues with a badly worn fork, due to play, sloppiness and no doubt creaking or similar audible indication.

I think some of the posters need to tame their overactive imagination, heed their own advice and 'get a grip'.

OP- Best thing you can do is take them apart and see how they have fared.

I've been told that the issue is that the anodizing is very hard compared to the bare aluminium underneath and the rate of wear increases vastly once the anodizing has been worn through. Wether it's truly an issue I don't know

I've killed a set of Pike over a few years riding in the Peak - worn anodising, the alloy underneath wears in a ridged pattern longitudinally and then, as you'd expect, water, which round here is a fine solution of grit, finds its way past the seals and into the fork lowers where it stops the fork from moving freely, and oil gets out too. You can change the oil in the fork lowers every few weeks or so to free them up, but it gets a bit wearing. So yes, it's an issue if you want your fork to move smoothly up and down and I guess, with continued use, the bushing/tube clearance will open up and cause knocking etc. Ime anyway.

Exactly, and thats coming from a guy that knows how to ride a bike properly.

But that doesn't make it right.....

How do we know the forks aren't a sloppy undamped mess with bushes like a wizzards sleeve? And becasue it's taken 8 years to get that far, he won't have noticed them getting gradually worse.... 8)

Seeing as its used as a 2nd mtb I may as well have a go at a diy service.

Thanks.

Thank you PP, Im glad im not the only one who was horrified by Jedi's statement! Im sure they're fine, but I'd want everything in top top condition, esp if my livelihood depended upon it!

back to the OP - i've got some fox float RC80s (set to 100mm) and they got their first service two years ago by a shop - guy said there was practically no wear. still got that awful progressive action that they had before though... 🙄

jase - Member

Seeing as its used as a 2nd mtb I may as well have a go at a diy service.

Thanks.

At the end of the day you can put them back together dry and send them to get serviced if the stanchions look ok and your not comfortable doing it. I'd recommend new seals at a minimum.
If your happy with the performance and don't like the current price levels then £90 is a big win.

The fox range is easily able to be reduced to 80mm in travel. You can take the 36's down to that from 160 ;0)

Tom Levell -Why put new seals on if the old ones are not leaking?

Skyline - some of the worst pish I have ever heard on here - hysterical nonsense

a service of a fork is a clean and oil change - anything more is repair

I've (shockingly!) got to agree with TJ on this.

If forks /shocks are cleaned and oil changed regularly then the seals shouldn't need replacing for a long time.

And yes, I also agree that jedi might notice if his forks were on the verge of collapse, since they would probably have more play than a year old isis BB 😯 (that's not to say their damping wouldn't be improved by a change of oil).

By adopting this attitude, you are letting your customers down.

But he's teaching riding skills/techniques not bike maintenance.

The '05 RC66's on my big bike had an oil change 6 months from new and haven't been touched since , so nearly 6 years.

why is fox so highly rated, you need to service them everyday for optimal performance. i had marzocchi mx comps from 2004, had for 5 year and never serviced - they worked perfectly. Also had rst mozo pros for 3 year, never serviced and build quality is really good (they get slagged off a lot) got a pair now which work much better than a pair of recons i had. so thats that.

All depends just how much use & abuse they have had, if they are knacked you'd be able to tell by wear on the stanchions & play in the forks themselves, if all okay then a DIY service of oil change & I'd say seals too after 5 years will be fine.
Alot of doom mongers on here - most of the service intervals suggested by manufacturers are their get out of jail free cards when your forks fail & you haven't had them serviced by an authorised dealer every 20 hours..

Crikey!

'zocchi's will last years of abuse withotu a service, IME the seals last longer than the bushings!

Also if Jedi's are 8 years old they'll be open bath, open bath means there'll probably be >3x the volume of oil in the 'damper' than in most other forks, so logicaly you could deduce they'd take 3x the time to degrade to a similar level, i.e. much much slower. Also the open bath system means the bushings see a lot more oil flowing past them and so last longer. 'zocchi even say they'll warrenty forks for 3 yrs without a service!

I'd hapily trust 8yr old 'zocchis after little more than a visual inspection.

I've got some 2004 Marathons that have only had 1 oil change in that time. Should I be worried for my safety?

I mean this in the nicest possible way but this:

Skyline-GTR - Member
"You undermine that in your post, by stating you've not serviced your fork for 8 years!
By adopting this attitude, you are letting your customers down."

is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read in the bike forum. When Jedi sets up shop as a suspension tuner you might have a point.

just been out and checked... all good still 🙂

just been out and checked... all good still

Phew, i was worried that you might break yourself Jedi 😉

simonlovell999 - Member
Also had rst mozo pros for 3 year, never serviced and[b] build quality is really good[/b] (they get slagged off a lot) got a pair now which work much better than a pair of recons i had. so thats that.

😆