Where do you buy your suspension service stuff?

Posted it before: ebay. bits4bikes. superb seller.

Thanks. Is that really the going rate though? £33 for 2 seals, 2 foam rings, an o-ring and 3 washers? Makes the extra £12 for <100ml of fluids look like a bargain!

Halfords for fork oil.  I never change anything else unless its obviously faulty.  Multiple oil changes with no new o rings or seals needed

@northwind yes it is and as you said it's long overdue so hardly a fortune.if you think £33 for 2 seals 2 foam rings etc is expensive which will most likely make your fork feel smooth again is expensive then the cost of living has bitten you harder than others .
It's nothing new biking is relatively expensive but so is most things in life these days .
Stop been tight 😉

And as for spending hours on the Internet............it takes 5 mins
2 mins on fox
2 mins on one of 50 sites to order your bits
1 minute to enter your card details
Really isn't hard

Thanks for that helpful insight.

Brilliant 😂

Wherever possible I buy motorbike oils- they're sometimes literalyl the same thing only cheaper, Fox frinstance used to be all rebranded Torco and Silkolene and you could generally buy the same product with the different label on it for about 40% the price.

SKF seals where available are supposedly better, can I tell? No.

I recently did my 34's, I bought a whole big bottle of Fox 20wt gold as it works out much much cheaper. I also got new foam rings for a few quid. I used the Sram butter I already had and reused the crush washers. The seals looked ok so I just cleaned them.

Jtech, they sell RSP stuff which is good vfm

Or leave them longer. Didn't service my 32's for 8 years and about 5,000 miles and they needed doing yes, but nothing bad had happened. Maybe a bit smoother now, but not night and day.

I guess also depends on the type and frequency of muck they get thrown at and how well you clean and maintain a bike generally.

For lowers on rockshox I normally just do new foam rings annd crush washers and a clean and re-grease seals / new lower leg lube.

I normally buy from either tf tubes or j tech (whichever has stock at the time for the best price). I don’t tend to buy a service kit for forks.

I do fork seals every few years - normally buy the skf ones which come with new foam rings and crush washers. The rockshox (cheaper) kits always seem to be out of stock when I look.

Rear shocks are more tricky - to do an aircan service I normally buy a 50 hour service kit. They do seem pricy for what they are but what can you do? Rear shocks get a hard time and occasionally need some love.

.if you think £33 for 2 seals 2 foam rings etc is expensive which will most likely make your fork feel smooth again is expensive then the cost of living has bitten you harder than others .

Wow! Some people really have no idea about trying to live on a budget - bully for you mate.

+1 for motorcycle oils. Lower legs don’t really need the specific rate either. 1 litre lasts ages. Clean the foams and grease the seals (with proper suspension grease).

Northwind

Wherever possible I buy motorbike oils- they’re sometimes literalyl the same thing only cheaper

It's a great idea, but when the likes of Rock Shox start giving the oils names and not publishing the equivalent oil weights/ grease type etc, how much research does it take to find the right stuff?? It's just easier to pay through the nose for the right bits and not use em so often

I also got new foam rings for a few quid.

@dc1988 Where did you buy your foam rings? I got some eBay ones that were like washing up sponge rather than the lovely felty fox ones.

reeksy
Full Member

+1 for motorcycle oils. Lower legs don’t really need the specific rate either.

The random one is diesel or motorbike engine oil- doesn't swell seals (*), pretty much exactly as resistant to shear pressures as most fork oils, it's almost ideal for lowers.

(* some fork oils contain seal swelling agents, which for motorbikes is a good idea as they deal with much bigger forces and have longer service intervals, so swelling the seals fractionally improves sealing with little downside. But for us, that can make for a sticky fork since we're dealing with much less force.)

desperatebicycle
Free Member

It’s a great idea, but when the likes of Rock Shox start giving the oils names and not publishing the equivalent oil weights/ grease type etc, how much research does it take to find the right stuff??

To be fair, I let other people do the work- like, someone recognised the Torco bottles on Fox Green, and then checked out the available stats and details and worked out it was Torco rsf medium. Does seem like there's more genuine bike-specifics than there used to be though, like, nobody seems to have an equivalent for the Fox ptfe stuff. Then again equally nobody seems to really know if it's important.

I’ve a mate that runs a motorbike suspension mechanic and he reckons running 30w engine oil should be ok. I haven’t needed to try that yet though.