How are they? And is there a way of setting them up so they don’t blow through their travel under load? I’ve tried to set them using the manual’s recommended pressures, but while they are great on small stuff there’s a lot of diving going on.

Ta TR

i run 05 versions i think? random ebay purchase a few years back… might be a different year, thought they were really kewl with their black stanchions but never really set them up properly so can’t help, but never have them blow through there travel…

I take it if you put more air in them they are too hard? no small bump absorption? Try putting more oil in them if they are open bath type. It will ramp the pressures up more quickly so they will be as soft at the beggining of the travel and harder at the end. do it in 10 ml increments. Higher oil levels in open bath forks make them more progressive.

If they are the Doppio Air air spring like my old 02 Marathon S than it was really hard to set them up properly (3 different valves). I managed to do that but couldn’t find a sweet spot it was either xc hard and no dive or small bumps but going quick through the travel. Once nearly got it right, took the shock pump with me and went for a ride. The pressures from the manual didn’t work too well and I just experimented with different settings I would suggest You try that.

Depending what extras do You have with the SL, I had ECC 3, You might have ETA or TST. I just flicked them to the second setting which increased the compression damping and the forks were not blowing through the travel and had them fully open when needed.

My friend has some 66 SL with the Doppio Air cartridge and hers are working sweet as a nut, maybe Marzocchi managed to do a decent one eventually and I even managed to set them up to work properly.

Summing up. Doppio Air on older Marzocchi forks = pain in the ass 🙂

I ran a set of Marathon Race , i think they have the same system.

Anyway , the guy i got them from managed to get hold of “team setting” of the day.

I ran them like that for a few 000 miles and were the best forks i have used to date.

I’ll post the pressures later when im home but as mentioned, it may be ralated to the oil level.

having said all that ,if they are bottoming out then you may have blown a seal already.

I had a pair, now on the SO’s bike and still going strong. IIRC the handbook recommendation were not good. I used to run them around 35-40 PSI in the main chambers and around 100 in the negative, ETA fully open. Never noticed any problems with excessive dive

Forgot one thing. Might have the seal broken in the negative chamber and the air is leaking out. Because it’s a dual air air spring You can adjust the sensitivity at any pressure of the positive spring. They can sort that out along with a service as I got a reply about that and the seal costs peanuts.

Don’t know about 2003 but 2002 had a service manual included to the original user manual so if You feel confident than You might give it a try 🙂 Don’t know how much Windwave would quote for a service, but probably around £80 and that’s how much a Marathon from 2005 went on eBay not so long ago… So I would consider doing it myself.

Yep it’s the three valve system, I don’t think that any of the seals are faulty as they seem to go up and down in a normal way and they are keeping thier respective recommended pressures just fine, but Like Mieszko, I’m finding it difficult to get a good progressive feel to the forks, i.e: nice and supple at the top and ramping up nicely as they load-up.

Thanks TJ, but I don’t think you can do the oil-level thing on these ones, ironically, I’d like them to behave more like a bog-standard open bath fork, but was wondering if there was a trick to it, I’ll try Windwave in the morning, I guess they should know 😀

Thanks All,

TR