Serviced the forks recently for the first time and realising what a difference it made thought id get a kit and do the rear (drcv) shock as well. Just done an air can service which was even easier than the fork lower leg service, took 30mins!

Now the thing I’m surprised about is it actually feels better to ride- before it was getting kinda ‘soggy’ and sitting right in the mid-stroke all the time. It definately seems more ‘poppy’ and supported now. Even the rebound settings seem to work better giving some useable range of adjustments where before the difference between 1 click was to go from super slo-mo to almost no damping at all!

So the question is, given it held air fine before and none of the seals looked damaged why does it feel any different now ?

Is it just the emperor’s new clothes or is there some reason changing the air seals and wipers makes such a difference?

a) slightly different air pressure? Even if you set it the same as last time there’s nothing to say it didn’t drop over time.
b) more float fluid = less stiction
c) more float fluid = less volume = more ‘pop’
d) placebo effect, I changed my engine oil at the weekend, steering felt lighter afterwards. Got to love a freshly serviced car.

It might be a little bit more free moving now, but given that it’s just an seal change it’s probably placebo effect. Nothing wrong with that though, and changing seals is a good thing to do.

So I went for a ~10mile ride this evening with the serviced air can.

OMG.

Servicing the rear air can is my new favourite thing I’ve done to this bike and that includes fitting a reverb and changing the avids to shimano brakes.

There is so much more mid range support- the bike no longer wallows in the mid travel area. It makes climbing an absolute breeze and doesn’t seem to have adversely affected descending performance- the shock is just as supple over bumps etc.

I’ve got a theory on why there is an improvement.. on the FOX air can there is a small negative spring chamber directly after the external wiper seal/quad ring assembly- over time dust, grit, water or even air will get into the negative spring area past the wiper seal. Anything getting in to this area will decrease the volume and hence increase the pressure of the negative spring- causing the shock to sit lower in it’s travel for a given ‘set’ air pressure. Hence the wallowing and general poor performance.

So if you have a FOX air can and it’s been on the bike 6months or so… definitely do a service on it.. you will not regret it!

Reduction in ‘stiction’ from new ‘clean’ seals and fresh float fluid/lube.
Easy to do at home if you’ve got a bench vice.
Tip on putting the air can back on put the rebound on full slow and compress the damper unit and then fit the air can on and do up, makes it loads easier.

Saw another suspension company was trying to charge £65 😯 to do air can services on fox rear shocks 😆

Are people really suprised that a mechanical item works better after it’s been serviced?