I’ve just done a full oil and seal change on my SIDs with a XX MoCo Cartridge. The lockout works great now but there’s perhaps 5-10 ml give before it locks out (it locks solid once it gets to this point, it doesn’t continue to give very slowly).

My understanding is…
– this just means I’ve slightly underfilled the upper with oil, the syringes I used are perhaps not that accurate.
– it’s better to have slightly underfilled than over filled as underfilled means the lockout doesn’t lock out at full travel whereas overfilled means the compression damping wont function correctly when the fork is active

Perhaps a stupid question but can I unscrew the MoCo cartridge and dribble a bit more oil into the upper chamber (and perhaps do this a few times untill the lock-out kicks in at full travel)? My undstanding is that the LH leg is the only one that’s pressurised with the +ve & -ve springs. Or is this going to embed the cartridge in my ceiling and ejaculate 5wt all over my face?

I prefer using oil height if its published to oil volume, I normally put in slightly too much and suck out the excess using a fork oil level tool (syringe with a graduated metal tube and an adjustable height stop), you can easily make a dip stick to check oil height.

Yes you can just pull the compression cartridge out the fork and add some more oil.

If you overfill the fork could hydro lock before full travel. You can cycle the damper to check.

Ohh thanks bigyan that helps a lot, yeah I’ve got a height. I’d wondered about using that, I’d assumed it’s the height from the piston to the top of the fluid? I’d been worried that whatever I stuck in there to measure would displace volume and upset the measurement.

usually the oil height is from the top of the oil to the top of the fork leg, basically the empty space above the oil

Is that with the shaft/piston at full extension then? I guess it’s just the same length of the damping cartridge right?

yes, at full extension:

Great! Thanks for the help, think I’ll get one of those oil height tools ordered, didn’t know they exist! I’ve never seen them in the pdf guides or videos, looks like they’ll make it much quicker to do accurately!