Left upside down overnight this led to no improvement.

for what its worth i’ve had my 55cr’s for a year now and i’ve not had any real issues with them. getting the rebound/compression and air pressure setting took a while but once i found a setting i was happy with i cant really fault them.
i stand my bike on its back wheel with the front secured to a hook in the wall so its nearly upside down when stored and i have to admit that when i get the bike down the forks can stick a little but once ive compressed the fork a couple of times they become smooth again.

one thing i remember i did do is that i put a very small amount of lube on the fork seals and the upper stanchions when i got the fork to help bed them in.
not sure if this is why i’ve not had any issues yet.

Rusty how much oil did you put in?

Mine should be back from the menders soon……with different coloured lowers. We think the bushes were too tight (weren’t sized right?) which also accounts for why the forks always felt too stiff no matter what I did with the psi.

Will post up a pic 😀

Hmm… I wonder if this why my 350cr are still stiff and have a lot of stiction.

How can you tell/measure if this is the case?

My stanchions started wearing in lines- keep an eye on your stanchions?

No matter what I did the forks always felt on the stiff side. Especially the initial stroke- so maybe that?

Well I’m using my Rock Sektors as a baseline.

fr0sty125 – I fitted my 350CRs last night. I haven’t ridden them properly (and TF Tuned lowered the travel for me before fitting) but they are very smooth with no obvious stiction and clearly want to sit into the travel a bit as TF Tuned set them up.

There’s something the matter with yours….

Yeah I’m thinking the same I will give them a proper ride this weekend if they are not right then I guess I will send them back.

Frosty mine are back today or tomorrow- as soon as I compress them I’ll be able to tell you. If I find its night and day- you should call Windwave.

Wow.
The pic really don’t do them justice. They look BOS forks expensive in the flesh.

Frosty- mine are silky smooth – no initial firmness etc. At odds with the ones I sent back.

very nice Hora….i’m a bit envious of the colour scheme…looks much better than the black version

so have they just replaced the seals and lowers or given you a new fork?

Everything bar the cart inside.

so its practically brand new? you jammy sod!! 😆

look cool. I reckon you’d get more for them 2nd hand now than with all black 🙂

you jammy sod!!

Ironically, they managed to do a ONE day turnaround. I thought it’d been weeks due to the summer weather. Fantastic service and communication really. Couldn’t fault it.

They look awesome. Well jealous of the white lowers over black.

Want to swap?? 😆

Fantastic service and communication really. Couldn’t fault it.

Windwave have always had a good reputation. My experience with them has been exemplary too.

They look brilliant.

I’ve always really like Marz forks since the MX Pro ETAs which were the first half decent forks I owned.

It looks like they are back to their best after a few years in the wilderness

Where can I get a set. They would be just the thing on my 5 spot spaced down to 150mm

hora – Member

Frosty- mine are silky smooth – no initial firmness etc. At odds with the ones I sent back.

Well I guess my suspicion from the start that mine were not right is probably true.

after my initial shit start with these forks – I finally managed a ride on them last night.

Does anyone else’s 55’s make a squishing noise when compressed or do I need to faff with the cartridge oil?

Mines fixed and squishes.

Pre fix it didnt squishy

My 350 cr doesn’t squish.

They certainly do work 😀 but sound like a squabbling mouse is in them

Mine were great at first but get sticky after a few hours of use. Also the rebound damping disappeared. I took them apart and found them to be bone dry on the seals. I also changed to 10w oil.

Long story short, the 10w oil made the compression stroke feel shit and restrained (not recommended). I ripped the air seal trying to get it back in from the bottom (shit design – cartridge in stanchion, why they don’t use the stanchion itself like RS is a mystery to me). Rebuilt them from the top, which was very tight but I used a handlebar on my socket wrench to get more leverage.

Eventually sent them back. They came back after a week feeling as good as new.

My advice is, keep them lubed up inside, and be very careful when trying to put the air head back in from the bottom of the leg.

In use, great. They are very smooth and composed. Definitely better than my other current forks on the compression stroke (Totem RC2DH, Domain R, DJ2).

So basically crap out of the factory. They need ‘reassembly’ to get them right.

As per Jaame.

Having to try and push the lips of the air seal in and get the whole lot inside the inner tube is crap. But then I couldnt get the top cap off mine to drop it in from the top – ie the correct way for the air seal lips. Apparently they are thread locked from the factory. My top cap started chewing itself even with a proper Shimano cassette tool.

I can see Marzocchi having stantion wear issues ala FOX with this fork.
I stuck 30 or 40cc of extra oil in the bottom of each leg and I store the bike upside down when not in use.

I think they work very well when they work. I rate them as the best feeling fork I’ve recently owned on a good day. My totems also felt great for about ten minutes when new. They still feel great now when I change the oil. Only problem is, you have to do that every three to five hours to keep them working well. My DJs have had one oil change in 4 years and it didn’t make any difference. Awesome before and after but no compression damping adjustment. Same with the Domain R. No control on the compression stroke.

The 55CR feels great to me. Very smooth, they give a great amount of feel over the front end through turns and stuff. The compression adjustment range is very good (unlike the Totem RC2DH which doesn’t make a discernible difference from one end to the other, and that fork cost me an an arm and a leg).

My 55 is feeling great now. I’m just planning to see how it goes, probably put more oil than recommended in the legs next time, and just leave the damper side alone. Any oil added to the air spring will go in from the top of the leg. I think I’ll also lube the seals by pulling them open a bit with a plastic pick and pouring oil in from the top.

Not perfect, but it’s a cheap fork. I paid 900 quid for my Totem and that felt shit after a couple of days too. It’s a lot easier to service though. Even after this ballache with the 55, I don’t regret buying it. I think it’s going to be fine now.

Update on my 350 CR after a half dozen rides and a lot of Fenwick’s they are starting to feel really good. The initial stiction has nearly completely gone and the forks feel very smooth. I still haven’t had chance to ride them really hard as I’m recovering from a broken wrist but what I have found is that they are extremely stiff, track very well and handle the bigger hits effortlessly.

My rebound damping has disappeared for a second time and I haven’t been able to fix it by bleeding the cartridge following the YouTube video. Seems like it’s very sensitive to air inside the cartridge and yet the bleed process inevitably allows some air back in (when you reconnect the bled rebound and compression ends back together). It is a great fork when it works but that seems to be a maximum of two months at a time for me.
I noticed a recent review on pinkbike for a banshee downhill bike had similar problems with the 88cr which was sorted with a different damper (from the previous year form).
So next I’ll be posting them back again to see what windwave can do, presumably fix them for another two months…

Update- I switched to Pikes from 55’s. I’ll admit to this- the 55’s felt way plusher and better. Sad to admit as I got rid of my 55’s. Bare with them- tbh anyone with ‘issues’ may be experiencing what I did before I had my lowers etc replaced- bushes that are in too tight from the factory. Once this was sorted.. wow. then I bloody sold them.

Just finished a ride in the peaks and i noticed this.

Same issue as hora’s 55cr seems to hit my 350 CR

What couriers would people recommend for forks?

YGM

Didn’t get it but ygm

My 55CR started to get a bit sticky again after almost a year since the last service. The air side had almost no lube oil in the lowers. The damper side was as it should be. I obtained another travel spacer from my friend and I’ve rebuilt the fork at 130mm travel. I’m going to use it on my Corsair 130mm travel bike for a bit for trips to the jumps and pumptrack. Post service it feels great on the carpet test.
I spoke to Marzocchi at the Taipei show this year. He said the gold race coating had some scratching problems so it was changed. The interesting thing he said was that all coatings scratch up, but on some you can’t tell. I am guessing the Espresso coating, Kashima and Marzocchi black are examples of these.

I forgot to mention. Re the air in the damper. If the DBC works as they claim, it shouldn’t matter that there is a little air inside the cartridge after a service. When the fork bottoms, that air should be purged through the one way seal, and fresh oil from the lowers sucked back in when the fork extends. If the rebound damping has disappeared, I think it is a problem other than air inside.

is it an easy job to remove the 20mm spacer?

Fitting and removing the travel spacers is easy.

I dropped mine to 130 but the rebound damping wasn’t sufficient to handle the higher pressure of 120 to 130 psi. I rebuilt it to 170 and that very weekend met another guy with a 55CR. Back to back testing made it clear that my rebound damping was not as it should have been. I sent it back for the second time. They said they will probably switch the damper. I said you really should since this is the second occurrence.

I don’t know if anyone is still reading this thread but I will post an update anyway.

My rebound damping disappeared for the second time. I sent it back and they told me they changed the damper with a new one, which came from Italy the week after the news came out about them looking for a buyer.

Anyway it was great again for a few weeks. This morning when doing a long climb in the saddle, I noticed a clicking sound. After washing the bike at home, it was clear there was a notchiness, kind of clicking and sticking when changing from compression to rebound. I thought it felt like there was no lube oil in the lowers. There wasn’t enough in there to run out when I pulled the lowers off just now. I rebuilt the fork with 30cc of 7.5wt in each leg, and the clicking and sticking is still happening. Oh dear. The air side was smooth so I guess there is a problem with the damper again. The damping still works, but the feeling is new.