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Just out of interest has anyone else ever had difficulty when fitting a Hope Hed Doctor? I fitted one with a Hope headset on to my Rock Shox Revelations a few years ago and it was a struggle but I have had zero problems with it since. Last night we fitted one to my mates shiny new Revs and it took forever along with a bit of filing a chamfer on the steerer, and having to 'carefully' hammer the bloody thing in (using a piece of timber to protect it). As with mine the O ring got nipped. Then we had to use a dowel and said hammer to drive it into the steerer. We've got it in and it works fine. The guy at Hope in the Hopetech vid makes it look a breeze. Is it something to do with the difference between steel and alloy steerers?
Fitted four now I think, never had a problem.
You do need to take it apart completely and grease it up before installing.
I find once you remove the pointless bung thing and fit a star nut, they work splendidly.
I always end up removing the o-ring and replacing it with a smaller elastic band as it always seems to stop the thing from going in properly, especially with aluminium steerers, it's fine with steel ones.
Get rid of the o-ring, and wind it out first so it's snug fitting, and doesn't spin when you start to tighten it.
My current fork has one in - also RS Revs
Its was hard to fit - nipped the O-ring as well - and offers no benefit over a SFN. I only used it because when I looked in my spares bin I had two of them and no SFN's
i fitted one of these last night. I watched the hope video and thought that looks easy, so went out to the garage to do the same. What a faff!
In the end I had to loosen the wedges off completely, then compress the collar using a mole wrench to get it into the steerer, then whack it in with a hammer and a dowel before finally tightening it up as per the instructions.
It seems to do the job once its in, but its doesnt just slide in nicely as per the video.
I used it to replace a star nut because I suspect the star nut wasnt in square and was meaning I couldnt get enough tension on an angleset to stop it form moving slightly.
If you're using a hammer you're doing it wrong!
Strip it, throw away the o-ring (it's going to snap anyway), grease the wedges, reassemble. slide into steerer loose, tighten in-situ. there really is nothing to it, i've done it many times.
slide into steerer loose
Thats the point, it doesnt just slide into the steerer, even if you've loosened off the wedges and greased them up.
I'm sure it does on some steerers and on the hope video it just slides straight in, but on my steerer, theres no chance of it sliding straight in.
I even took mine apart so all I had was the collar (just so I could make sure the wedges werent engaged), but it still wouldnt fit in the steerer without using mole wrench to compress it a little.
The collar without the wedges in was of larger diamater than my steerer
O ring removed and it fully undone, still wouldn't go into a pair of 2012 Revs however the same one (and another) easily go into my Devilles and Towers, depends on the ID of the fork steerer
they cost the same as a SFN setter anyway so why bother?!?
The collar without the wedges in was of larger diamater than my steerer
then the question is why did you force it when you knew it wouldn't fit?
I've only fitted one once, but it was a faff. Took a lot of head-scratching to make it work, plus a bit of hammering. Works great now though 🙂
Is this down to different steerer thickness or dodgy Lancastrian tolerances or something?
I've fitted two and they went in with such little thought and such simplicity that I can't even recall off hand what they look like under the top cap, let alone imagine how anyone could have an issue.
I had the same problem fitting into Fox F29s. Removing the O-ring (which tech support at hope told me was fine) solved it. The *good* thing about them (compared to SFNs) is that you can get them out of your forks very easily without risk of damaging the inside of the steerer.