Been a bit lazy servicing the lowers on my RS Revelations over the winter. Just got round to it tonight, bit of wear now on the left stanchion.

How much is acceptable? You can’t feel any scratches or difference, but the coating has gone in places. Just see how it goes?

Also, how do people clean the insides of the lowers? I do the usual rag on the end of a dowel, but can never get all the crud out of the bottom. Tempted to dunk them in some hot soapy water, rinse and and leave them to dry overnight. Bad idea?

Ride it, hose it, ride it, hose it and repeat. If it stops working, worry about it, otherwise, ride it, hose it…………….

I have gone for the similar ride it hose it lube it ride it hose it lube it and my revs left leg is showing way less wear than that so you just made me really happy- if it aint loosing air leave well alone is my theory. Really cheap that way.

I’ve now got two sets of RS forks with far worse stanchion wear than this… and it appears to make next to naff all difference in their performance!

All the important stuff, so compression/rebound or air spring, are held inside the stanchions themselves, so scratches on the outside only mean that some dirt/water might get between them and the bushes, which will increase wear if you don’t pay some attention to them, but it certainly won’t stop them working just fine.

Mine are showing a bit of wear in the same place, but not as much as yours! Not much help I know 😀 the oil left did look like stewed tea so it’s not a surprise. Must service more often… A new csu is £200 – 240, plus service. For that it’s cheaper (or as cheap) to buy new forks in the sale so I’d leave them now until thier proper knackered

My Thor’s have the same problem, except they’ve now pretty much gone ‘silver’ on both sides – but that’s about a year after they looked like yours, and according to Strava I’ve done over 4k offroad since.

As trusty says, it gets to a point where its cheaper just to ride them.

Ta.

Why’s it always the left leg (spring side) then?

Yeah, will put them back together tomorrow morning and be out on Sunday. They’re coil Revs, so no air to leak. At some point they’ll start letting oil past the bottom seals I guess, but many more miles in them yet.

Pretty sandy on my local loop – if I ride/hose/ride then they’d look a look worse than this – these are 5 yrs old 🙂

For cleaning the inside of lowers, get yourself a shotgun cleaner like this

Also great for motorbike forks.

why do people always talk about air leaks when stanchions wear, the air spring is on the INSIDE of the leg you muppets.
the seals are there to keep shite out not air in.

Not the same but still a pretty nasty gouge- worse than it looks.
Was absolutely fine for 2+ years and never bothered to repair/fix.

Good point. Never had an air fork, but assume the air gubbins sits inside the left stanchion like my spring. So the only thing that could leak is a bit of oil from the lowers.

Why’s it always the left leg (spring side) then?

disk side, more stress/fore-aft flexing and bushing binding going on on that side.

May also be due to the effect of having the brake on the LHS.