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Following on from my previous thread about my Pikes developing an Oil leak when I was in Tignes...
Back in blighty, so last night it was time to give the forks some attention.
Dropped the lowers off and there was still some oil in the damper side and the CSU looks nice undamaged - ace. That's a relief as they were getting some hammer in Tignes.
Did the 50 hour lowers service (followed the manual to the letter) including new crush washers and torqued the bottom bolts up to 7.3NM.
Now once the forks were put back on the bike and adjusted, I took it for a spin.
Forks felt nice but there is still a little bit of oil coming out of the bottom of the damper side.
2 things I noticed when doing the service.
1) The airspring side crush washer is in a retainer on the footbolt, however the damper side crush washer sits in groove on the with no retainer fitted from the factory, the crush washer sits almost entirely in this groove, with very little material left to deform upon tightening. Worth noting that there is no mention of the retainers in the manual and spares are sold in pairs.
Has anyone fitted their crush washer on the damper side with retainer?
2) The footbolt on the damper side is hollow (unsurprising, seeing as how else would you adjust the rebound), so if you manage to get oil in the threads of damper shaft (entirely possibly even if you angle the syringe and forks), it will come through the foot bolt and into the rebound adjuster, appearing to be a leaking crush washer. This could have happened I guess.
I think I'm going to ride them and keep an eye on them.
Is there anyway to tell if it's the damper thats leaking oil rather than the crush washer? Aside from the hopefully obvious degradation in damping performance?
Also, having just gone out to the garage to check for pools of oil (there was none) I noticed that the synthetic suspension oil that got onto my tyre sidewall has attacked the rubber.
Not in a big way but visibly and thank goodness for EXO sidewalls!
To check if the damper has lost any oil, next time you have the forks apart, cycle the damper rod when the uppers are held vertically, there should be no squelching, if there is air in there you will feel and hear it.
If they have leaked, could be the bladder or the lower seal on the damper.
Cheers Sir, I'll do that!