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Its a 2007/8 nixon 160 cod with the intrinsic damper (really good! ) and air/ mars ride spring.
It also has a negative coil spring but doesn't seem to be adjustable.
Its running the red / standard spring in it.
Running about 60psi (gives 25% sag) in it is nice to ride but just about bottoms out on just 1' drops and under any braking.
Running about 90psi (gives 10% sag) has no small bump response but still plummets through travel when pushed with virtually no ramp up towards end.
So, do I need a soft or firm ride spring instead? They seem hard to track down now for the 160mm so don't want to have to get hold of both.
Also for the bush/ semi bath lube I was using spare stendec 5wt shock oil but it was a bit grabby. So just swapped out for shell slide lube 68 oil, typically used in lathe gearboxes/ slide ways and its do much smoother I don't know why fork mftrs don't suggest its use!
How are you measuring sag?
Mojo recommend that you don't do this sat down but rather in the "attack" position. This makes a massive difference.
http://www.mojo.co.uk/sagsetup.html
Yeah, I pretty much do that already.
From what I've read, pressures above 60psi on that fork don't actually make much difference, as the air chamber then starts pushing down on the 'ride' kit spring which makes the first 10-20mm of the travel even softer! I kid ye not.
80/90psi is the recommended max, though the mftr rates it to 200psi, which if you put anything over about 120 it just doesn't move at all.
manitou 83-3219 firm appears to be the part number I need, but answer products/manitou seem to sell out in about 2009!
If you're handy with the spanners open up the air chamber and stick some extra oil or something in there to give it less volume and make it more progressive. Then try setting it up again.
More damping?
^^ yup, theres about 50ml (when only 5ml is suggested) in there of slide lube at the moment which does help it ramp up a bit, but nowhere near enough.
Yeah, winding up the compression damping obviously improves it from blowing through all the travel, but then there is not even mid bump (4" tree root) response, just solid and then bumf!
Will try and find a firm spring, as sounds like others have done the same and it sorted it. Stock medium/red spring seems to be for about a 60-70kg MAX rider, and I'm about 77-80kg with bag.
Its a 4/5 year old Manitou. They were very poor then, lets face it....
bushing wear? the turning force of the brake casing the legs to allign properly with the stantions...?
😆bushing wear?
He's simply far too heavy for the spring he's using and trying to compensate by turning knobs.
Don't be tight, the correct weight spring should always be included in your budget when buying a new or S/H fork/shock. Correct spring weight is the starting point for the set-up of all suspension.
^yup. Hence why I'm asking whether I need to go up a level, or infact down as I've seen people (180lbs/80kg+) in Canada running the softer spring and reporting an improvement too. The firm spring appears to be a hell of a challenge to get hold of, but a few US stores appear to have them in stock, will have to confirm though.
I actually used to really like some of manitou's higher end products, unfortunately their joke of a UK supplier/distributor/reseller/whatever the hell they claimed to be let them down BIG style in the UK, and I think they pulled out completely a few years back?
I also rate TPC/TPC+/Intrinsic damping systems very highly, they are well made, easy to service, easy enough to get spares (standard sized O rings throughout) and damp brilliantly. Bush's yeah, I've had TWO sets of manipoo forks give out on me in a very short space of time due to excessive bush wear, though there were numerous reasons why that probably happened (I was running too large/higher power brake+judder, and I ride very hard on forks that weren't spec'ed for what I was doing with them).
Manitou have made some good forks/shocks over the years, but their quality control was frequently a problem (though I would say Fox are worse IMO, numerous new forks failing from swarf in them!), and they also made dozens of utter crap products, and that is what they are remembered for, well, that and their woeful after sales support/non-existent in the UK.