Marzocchi Servicing Help Required Please! (AM-SL)

I've got a pair of Bombers in the garage to service. They belong to a certain Frenchman of these parts, so I'd like to do the job properly 😀

They are 150-160mm ish All Mountain SLs, not sure what year but I'd say around '07 possibly

I've got them in bits, that's no problem, but I have 2 questions:

1)
In this pic of the internals, that's what's inside each leg: 2 Cartridges.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4123/4783587228_fd763926b6_o.jpg

The one on the left seems to be the air spring, the one on the right the damper.
Is it possible to dismantle these and home service them? The damper cartridge is making some horrid squelching noises. The air seems OK, but I'm guessing a lube will help?

2)
Are there any official 'Zocchi service guides about? Rockshox ones are easy to find, but I'm struggling with these

Cheers chaps!
🙂

The one with the rubber seal is full of oil. It works by moving oil into the rubber reservoir. It is sealed but you can change the oil. The other cartridge is an open oil cartridge and I didn't try to take it apart.

Marzocchi service guides are available, last time I looked they were on their website but were INCREDIBLY hard to find. I did find one once via a third party website but, rather unhelpfully, I can't remember what it was now.

I'll get my coat.

no need to worry about the damper side 😉 just the air spring one.
I'll see if I can find a service guides 😉

Cheers so much for that, looks like I will have to beer you at the BBB 😉

I have found this
http://www.wheresweyland.com/images/2006_marzocchi_service_manuals/2006-all-mountain%20sl.pdf
Any help?

Hi Peterpoddy, the part with the rubber bladder is strippable (is that a real word :?) I put sae10 oil in mine. The other tube is Marzocchi's version of a dual air chamber (very unreliable), which I dumped on mine and fitted a modified Pike U Turn spring assembly. It just happens I have just put them for sale on the classifieds with some pics of the modified bits 8)

peterpoddy – I'm pretty sure that what you've got there is a scaled up version of the Marathon SL that I've got.

The cartridge with the rubber bladder does open up – but can be a bit of a beast to get open, especially if the top assembly is loctited shut. Mine opened up OK from the factory, but hasn't opened since a visit to Windwave after the bladder came loose.

There are no spanner flats on the actual cartridge body and Marz recommends soft vice jaws to hold the cartridge body. There's an assembly on the lower end of the cartidge that has spanner flats, if you can only get into the cartridge from that end, then if you're careful, I think it's still possible to change the oil and bleed the cartridge from that end.

If the test of whether the cartidge is properly bled is whether the lockout function works, then I was successful in doing it this way.

The other cartridge is the Doppio spring. I've been unsuccessful in opening this up, although I'm sure that it should open. I think I need to make some cartridge clamps, and possibly apply a heat gun to the top nut to break the loctite – but I'm wary of destroying rubber seals in the process. I'd like to get into the cartridge as mine has quite a bit of stiction and I'm sure would benefit from some oil. It certainly runs a lot better though after injecting a few ccs of fork oil through the neg and PAR valves.

Perhaps more to the point – check this out. http://warpweb.webs.com/marzocchiam1tuning.htm

The general info is good – and the link to the Marzocchi TST cart service video is very useful. The guy Warp is a mod on mtbr.com and from memory, has posted quite a bit on their forums about that fork, so might be worth searching there too for more info.

The stock oil specified for the damper is 7.5wt. Warp reported improvements in going to lighter oil (but apparently is light himself). I'm not sure that you'd want to put heavier oil into that damper rather than use the TST adjustment.

Birly –
Thanks very much for that info, it sounds spot on what I wanted to know! I'll have a read through that link in a mo' 🙂
The service guide link above has no mention of stripping the cartridges at all 🙁

The stock oil specified for the damper is 7.5wt. Warp reported improvements in going to lighter oil (but apparently is light himself).

Sounds good. Juan (The owner, above!) is light and I've got 5wt on the shelf.

I think I'll leave the air cartridge well alone, in light of what you say! 🙂

The oil in the damper does need changing though. Badly.

——————————————-
As an aside – Good god, these things are a nightmare inside compared to RockShox! I had to grind a socket down to get them apart, and then it's all sealed cartridges inside. Not good IMO, especially as RS almost fall apart in my hands and are sooooooo easy to service. Hey-Ho. It's good to learn!

Wait til you get to the piece of "probably" broken string in the spring side. 😕

Eh?

Well, I'd be delighted if you found a way into the spring cartridge and came back to let us know how you did it!

But if you feel any stiction on that side, then as a minimum I definitely felt that I transformed the quality of the ride with maybe only 3 – 4 ccs into the neg air chamber and a little less into the PAR.

On the other hand, if there's little stickiness then you needn't bother and then you won't get oily blow-back whenever you reduce the pressure in either chamber!

It's frustrating though – since all that stiction isn't even coming from the main spring. The cartridge only contains the negative and bottom out chambers.

Totally agree on how much simpler RS internals are if my Rebas are anything to go by. Dead simple for the amount of adjustment available.

peter what does the inside of the stanchons look like? Can I fit a clip for a drop off inside?

It just seems like a virtually plain tube inside Juan, apart from the threads at the crown end.

Did you know that there's some scratches on one of the stanchions?

yes, postage accident 🙁

I had a 2002 Marathon S with Doppio Air. The manual had a service manual in there as well HERE it is on the Marzocchi website. Might be useful as it has pictures of everything stripped in the fork. So if the air spring is the same system chances are it will look the same/ very similar.

Aah – I love the good 'Ol Bomber days….

Easy peasy lemon squeezy service : )