[Closed] Rockshox fork stantion (Rantette)

Am I missing somert???

Apart from the use of 'somert' you may have been missing the service intervals?. You need to do a lower leg service every wee while, seriously, it takes half an hour. Remove the foam seal, clean the wiper seals, soak and clean the foam, recommended oil level in each leg and bolt back together.

I guarantee if you do this now, they will feel fine.

do you clean them with wet&dry ?

stantion stations sanctions

No mention of servicing at all?

Drop the lowers off and you'll be horrified at how much crap is round below the dust seal/foam ring

But........ but....... this only happens to Fox forks. Everyone knows that.

KKF, you have my sympathy. Same here with Rebas. 9 months max then knackered stanchions. Two lower leg services in that period but didn't prevent the inevitable.
RS seem just as bad as Fox, not fit for purpose.

Jason (Rebound) can do a single stanchion transplant if you ask him. Not an officially recommended thing and may leave some cosmetic damage to the crown where the big hammer and vice have been applied to get the old one out, but it works.

The only real answer is Marzocchi though.

Drop the lowers off and you'll be horrified at how much crap is round below the dust seal/foam ring

This, tbh thjough you've been unlucky, my old recons were horribly abused for 3+ years, when I did finally service them, OMG The Horror! But stantions were mostly OK.

That was enough for me though, preventative maintanence all the way. I do share your pain, but if riding3/4 times a week, all year round, then a lowers service should have been done, maybe once every two months, less when conditions horrific. Manufacturer timings tend to be a bit over the top, but it is a job to do often, and once you've done it a few times, its a 30 minute job as above. Also a good way to ensure you examine your forks often, I know it seems like a ballache, but forks now are 600-1K, a little bit of TLC protects that investment.

From your description they don't sound beyond salvage, unless the wear is really bad, do the lowers and keep an eye out on classified fleabay, for borked fork with decent stantions, and swap out.

get a clean tooth brush around the top seals to clean any muck build up as well

This could be your issue as much as anything - dirt is as likely to get pushed in past the wiper seal as much as it's likely to be removed.

Better just to use a sponge & soapy water and give them a quick wipe after rides & pull the lowers off fairly regularly.

happened to my revelations. I'm running them into the ground.

This could be your issue as much as anything - dirt is as likely to get pushed in past the wiper seal as much as it's likely to be removed.

Lower service every 30 to 50 hours on Rockshox, 30 for Sids as very little oil in the lowers.
Single stantion replacement sounds dodgy as hell TBH.

18 months- so do you ride on average 1.67 hours per month? Or have you missed quite a few services? Rockshox lowers service takes no time at all, less time than you've spent on overzealous cleaning probably.

Yes you could have steel chromed stanchions, but not unless you want a 2kg Sid. Course, motorbikes also lose their coatings.

<double post>

+1 to all of the above, particularly this:

Single stantion replacement sounds dodgy as hell TBH

😯

clean the stations EVERY ride,

See that's your problem, washing interval is every 30 hours and they last forever 😉

I thought over cleaning as well. All I do to my forks is a quick wipe to remove surface mud, maybe compress them a couple of times to get the dirt away from the top of the seals.

Might be worth just doing an oil change and grease as that'll probably free them up. Slight wear is not an issue in terms of noticeable performance. If they don't leak oil or air then they are probably ok.

Why do you need new forks, if there is only very slight wear to the coating?

Is there any scratches/high areas that may mean the seals won't seal completely?

I'd just give them a lower leg service and keep using them. And service the lowers more regularly from now on. As mentioned above, once you've done it a couple of times, it takes hardly any time to do.

A mate of mine has wear on the stanchions of his Revelations and they've been like that for perhaps 3 or 4 yrs. They are fine. They don't leak and they still work fine. Just keep on top of the servicing.

Well after having the same issues with Fox twice and RockShox once I am not using their products if I can help it . Rather than spend £280 on new uppers for my Fox Forks I have bought a pair of X-Fusion for about the same money and have fitted a set of Lizard Skins Fork boots to them , hopefully they will last longer than a year and if the uppers do wear I can't imagine they will be as expensive to repair as Fox . Watch this space .

Why do you need new forks, if there is only very slight wear to the coating?

This. It's not like they are going to suddenly disintegrate.

drop the bottom off and see how much oil is in there. i bet not much.

give them a lower leg service and see how they feel. I bet with a bit of lube they will start moving as they should as at the moment they are probably bone dry.

I'm putting money on the lowers being full of soupy watery mud goop.

As already said by others - regular lower leg service is the answer. Easy to do and only a 10-20 min job.

Tooth brush will possibly push a little bit of dirt down into the seal each time you use it. Better to dribble a few drops of suitable lube (Triflow/fork juice) onto the seal/stanchion interface - then cycle the fork up + down a few times. This will pull any dirt out of the seal lip/top - then wipe dirt away.

andyl - Member

drop the bottom off and see how much oil is in there. i bet not much.

yep, almost certainly.

Can happen to any fork if dirt gets in or there isn't enough oil. That's why I prefered the old style RockShox seals with the oil seal underneath like Marzocchi also used (might still do?).

Enduro have a similar system, I use those now. Oil always completely clean when servicing, even after a few months of use through the winter. Bit more stiction, but seems worth it for the reliability.

I have bought a pair of X-Fusion for about the same money and have fitted a set of Lizard Skins Fork boots to them

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have bought a pair of X-Fusion for about the same money and have fitted a set of Lizard Skins Fork boots to them
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

+1 - quite possibly the worst thing to put on forks - trap all the nasty grinding mud paste in it's own little damp cocoon.

I see forks that are less than 3 months old wi knackered stantions in the shop on a regular basis, despite constantly telling folk that they need the lowers dropped/seals cleaned and checked/oil change every 30 hrs or so of use which may be every fortnight for some riders or monthly/bi monthly dependant on riding conditions etc for others, either learn to do it yourselves or find a local trusted bike shop to do it for you - we only charge £35 to do a basic service on all forks and offer the first service FOC and folk are more than welcome to watch us do it so they can attempt it themselves in future but to be honest very few ever bother, going by the inability of folk to even oil their chains it's no surprise that we have an ever increasing large display of knackered fork stantions hanging on our wall of shame.

You put them on the wall?, weigh them in for scrap 😉 Jaffa cake fund 😀

The other thing is, I'm still to see a Rockshox that went out with the recommended amount of oil in it... Not a problem if you service them on time but it's got to cut into the abuse-margins if you don't.

somafunk - Member

I see forks that are less than 3 months old wi knackered stantions in the shop on a regular basis, despite constantly telling folk that they need the lowers dropped/seals cleaned and checked/oil change every 30 hrs or so of use which may be every fortnight for some riders or monthly/bi monthly dependant on riding conditions etc for others, either learn to do it yourselves or find a local trusted bike shop to do it for you - we only charge £35 to do a basic service on all forks and offer the first service FOC and folk are more than welcome to watch us do it so they can attempt it themselves in future but to be honest very few ever bother, going by the inability of folk to even oil their chains it's no surprise that we have an ever increasing large display of knackered fork stantions hanging on our wall of shame.
Posted 11 minutes ago # Report-Post

To me that level of servicing = not fit for purpose .If you don't want to , or can't do it yourself then the forks are costing you £1 per hour in basic servicing plus annual major service and still no 100% guarantee of not wearing the stanchions .

Go rigid then and stop whining. You can't ride around in mud and shite and not expect to service them. And it only costs you about a tenner for a big bottle of oil, and 30 minutes of your time. If you can't handle either doing a bit of maintenance, or getting someone to do it for you, then maybe MTBing in the UK isn't for you.

Oh, and check the service intervals on your new forks, 25 hours fwiw.

To me that level of servicing = not fit for purpose

It takes me more time to thoroughly clean and relube a drivechain than it does to do a basic service on a Rockshox fork. Are drivechains also not fit for purpose, you'd be lucky to get 30 hours before it needs a good going over?

I'd heard that teflon lubes like fork juice were actually not that great as they just made a nice litle grinding paste. Any thoughts?

Go rigid then and stop whining. You can't ride around in mud and shite and not expect to service them. And it only costs you about a tenner for a big bottle of oil, and 30 minutes of your time. If you can't handle either doing a bit of maintenance, or getting someone to do it for you, then maybe MTBing in the UK isn't for you.

Just because my point does not agree with yours does not mean I'm whining
so no need to be all hostile . Marzocchi manage a 3year warranty with no service intervals so it can be done but if you're happy to service your forks every 30hrs that's your choice . Oh and by the way I have been mountainbiking in the UK since the late eighties so I think it may just be for me .

Why not buy marz then? Instead of a relative newcomer to forks? I'm not being hostile, but you did come across, perhaps accidentally, a little whiny. There is no such thing as a fit and forget fork in our riding conditions, despite marzocchis claims.

You can't ride around in mud and shite and not expect to service them

'zocchis don't appear to struggle with this.
Lowers off about once a year for oil change. Still running original seals at approaching 3 years old. No issues.

Previously both Fox and RS both managed only 6-9 months in same conditions before wearing through the coating (with the lowers off about every 3 months)

Does anyone actually follow the service routines incidentally? I have no idea when I've done 30 hours of riding, I just do it every so often when it seems like a good idea and I'm bored. My revs were bought well used, so far they've been serviced 3 times in 3 years and they're still bang on- I just couldn't complain if they died.

Ramsey Neil - Member

Marzocchi manage a 3year warranty with no service intervals so it can be done

Just had a wee look some Marzocchi manuals and they all seem to specify 25/50 hour service intervals (that was 55s and Marathons but it looks like a pretty generic manual). There's also other tradeoffs- for the OP, what's Marzocchi's SID competitor? They don't really seem to have one, the Marathon is almost as heavy as a Revelation.

Go rigid then and stop whining. You can't ride around in mud and shite and not expect to service them. And it only costs you about a tenner for a big bottle of oil, and 30 minutes of your time. If you can't handle either doing a bit of maintenance, or getting someone to do it for you, then maybe MTBing in the UK isn't for you.

Didn't get Marzocchi because they weren't available so I thought I would give somebody else a try . If the stanchions wear quickly or anything else goes wrong with them then I will be on here whining 🙂

doublepost

Ramsey Neil - Member
Marzocchi manage a 3year warranty with no service intervals

Um... No they don't. 2 year warranty and various bits of servicing every 25-50 hrs and that's with lubricating the seals very ride.

Feeling all the singletracklove. 🙁

A lesson learnt, need to drop the legs and give them a lube/service every 8 weeks.

Will be doing my Sid XX's on my other bike soon as don't want them going the same way. youtube is my friend for instructions.

I will wait for merlin Cycles to put an offer up and get some new SID's, works out cheaper if I sell the knackered ones on fleabay.

rockshox lip seals go jazzy when you take the lowers off. they stop working properly. disposable items, innit.

LoCo : Every bike (or set of forks we sell) whether that be fitted wi Fox/Rockshox whatever, we drum it into folk that they need regular servicing and it's dependant on use and riding conditions, we show them the wall of fork shame but to be honest you can't tell some folk or get it across to them - some folk run their brake pads so far down that they end up using their backing plate for a braking surface without realising or paying heed to that screeching metal on metal noise, others run their FS linkages/bearings into the ground so much that you can pick up their bike by the saddle to do the drop test and the rear of the bike goes "KLUNK" and wobbles about. Others run their rear shock pressure so low that it damages linkages and breaks frames due to continually bottoming out on drops which the frame design is obviously not intended to cope with, others screw the fork rebound right up as they think a boingy fork works best.....every day is a lesson in abstract idiocy.

The amount of mechanical ineptitude that folk show is truly astounding but i guess it keeps me in work 😀

BTW - i service my Fox Talas every month and i religiously clean the stantions with silicone spray after every ride and cycle them a few times without pressure to release the dirt/dust, i guess i've serviced them 6 or 7 times since last october, i'll be selling them at the end of June to get the 2014 Talas so someone will get a decent. well looked after fork

what's Marzocchi's SID competitor

Nearest equivalent is probably these that I've been considering for my XC hardtail.

[url= http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=70295&_$ja=tsid:46412|cgn:Forks+-+Suspension|cn:Chain+Reaction-UK-PLA-PLA-Eng-DT-SE|kw:267882UK_Corsa+Superleggera+Forks ]Corsa Superleggera[/url]

I will wait for merlin Cycles to put an offer up and get some new SID's, works out cheaper if I sell the knackered ones on fleabay.

Why are you replacing them at all for a little bit of wear?

somafunk, we keep the really bad/good ones for show mind you, I've also got a set of Showa usd forks off a Ducati 916, that have worn through the ti nitrite coating on the stantions 😉

bigrich - Member

rockshox lip seals go jazzy when you take the lowers off. they stop working properly

Colour me unconvinced!

dan1980 - Member

Ramsey Neil - Member
Marzocchi manage a 3year warranty with no service intervals

Um... No they don't. 2 year warranty and various bits of servicing every 25-50 hrs and that's with lubricating the seals very ride.

2013 Marzocchis with an open bath damper have a 3 year no servicing required warranty .

others run their FS linkages/bearings into the ground so much that you can pick up their bike by the saddle to do the drop test and the rear of the bike goes "KLUNK" and wobbles about.

😳

Good deal then, but only as good as the quality of the fork. If it isn't as good as they claim, your going to be without a fork regularly while it's away being serviced under warranty. Maybe it's just a case of marz buying their way back into the game, given their virtual disappearance for a few years.

You may well be right there , they have done themselves no favours over the past 5 years . Interestingly a friend of mine who is pretty knowledgable about these things recons that the old Bombers had 25 microns thick anodising whereas Fox and RS only use 5 microns thick .

Fork servicing... madnesss.

My Fox 29er forks are on 6000miles now and have never been touched apart from water and a bit of fork juice.

LoCo - Member
somafunk, we keep the really bad/good ones for show mind you, I've also got a set of Showa usd forks off a Ducati 916, that have worn through the ti nitrite coating on the stantions

They all do that sir, along with flaking engine paint and rubbish rockers 🙂

Its all down to weight now though, my old bomber mx comps were great at the time, but would be pretty heavy now.

njee20 - Member

I will wait for merlin Cycles to put an offer up and get some new SID's, works out cheaper if I sell the knackered ones on fleabay.

Why are you replacing them at all for a little bit of wear?

This wear on the coating and wear on the bushes is causing them to almost lock out at times and are very sticky.

C'mon grum....tell us the story.....i guess you you were just riding along and the back end fell apart? 😀

LoCo, i imagine you get a helluva lot more forks in for servicing than we do though so i guess it pays to offload them for scrap - the company that comes up with a suitable process to recoat worn stantions is gonna make a fortune. My motocross bikes with Showa USD never had a problem with worn stantions despite being used in hellish conditions but i guess they were built/designed to a suitable functioning strength rather than with a nod to weight weenie/seal stiction issues. How did someone wear out Ti Nitrite coated legs?, i bet they ran the bike during the winter without washing the salt off.

I've four sets of RS forks, the oldest of which is into it's eighth year now and still going strong. I don't really do much to them, other than to service the lowers every few months or so and even then, the oil is usually the same colour as when it went in. The foam rings do require careful soaking in order to remove dirt.

I wonder if there's a geographical constant to the reports of worn stanchions, lots of people here service their forks more frequently and thoroughly than I do but their forks last half as long?

I have been known to clean any mud from my stanchions and seals mid ride, just to be on the safe side and I guess that the really gritty stuff is going to cause much more damage than fine Kentish chalk.

Forgive me if I sin (i.e. I'm wrong) but I never really used to hear about stanchion wear. Has something changed?!!!

Colour me unconvinced!

what colour is unconvinced? you want I could make up a bath of food dye and you could wallow in that?

rockshox seals are a wear and tear item, and taking the legs on and off [i]both wears and tears them[/i]

what colour is unconvinced? you want I could make up a bath of food dye and you could wallow in that?

Similar to murdered out. 😉

bigrich - Member

rockshox seals are a wear and tear item, and taking the legs on and off both wears and tears them

As does moving the forks up and down but I don't replace them every time I do that.

what colour is unconvinced? you want I could make up a bath of food dye and you could wallow in that?

New shade from Farrow & Ball, my wife is thinking of using it for the bathroom

I wonder if there's a geographical constant to the reports of worn stanchions

I dunno where you ride but the majority of the 7stanes are coated with a layer of whinstane or granite dust that can quickly turn into a microscopic grinding paste with a smattering of water and mud added to it that resembles valve grinding paste and is just as abrasive, if this leaks down the seals then it's a matter of a few rides at most before the fork stantion is fubar, I feel the use of products such as the fork brace neoprene splashguards such as the Rapid racer products accelerate stantion wear by not allowing water and mud to pass through the brace so i prefer to use the Mucky Nutz bender fender as they seem to protect the stantions to a greater extent from debris and water/mud.

Yes the type of mud/soil/rock affects the amount of wear, peat stains the paint work too.
Oh and Powa fenders are the best thing for keeping stuff off the stantions, avoid the stantion covers unless you remove and wash them ever ride.

Others run their rear shock pressure so low that it damages linkages and breaks frames due to continually bottoming out on drops which the frame design is obviously not intended to cope with, others screw the fork rebound right up as they think a boingy fork works best.....every day is a lesson in abstract idiocy.

Two side to every story, n'est-ce pas? I'm struggling with my new Fox CTD rear shock. I don't think I'm an especially fast rider and barely get more than a few inches off the floor, but if I set the sag as it should be I'm blowing through the travel easily. Do I need a different shock tune? Does your average mountain biker even know different shock tunes are an option...at more cost? As for your rebound comment, why is someone an idiot for using the extremes of the adjustments available to them? At worst they're in the range the forks are designed to work in and at best they might have spent hours experimenting with the settings and found these work best.

Perhaps your shop could run some practical courses on how suspension should be set up as well as how to service it. I'd come, depending on where you are of course 🙂

We're planning to offer some course in basic servicing and maintainance later in the year when it quietens down a bit, for local clubs to start with and see how they go.

Where are you based Loco? Might be good that

These [I]"My shiny forks got a slight scratch and the man in the shop say's I'll die if I use them"[/I] threads just make me giggle...

I recently rebuilt an ancient old pair of Psylo SL's for a hack DJ bike, scuffed "Ruined" stanchions, knackered wiper seals all sorts of apparently fatal issues, cleaned up, rebuilt and oiled and working perfectly, not a hint of stiction and even the compression damper actually still works.

The Marz forks on My main HT are coming up on a Decade old, the stanchions are spotless and they work a treat...

And my ~8 Years old Boxxers have some light wear on one stanchion but are still lovely and smooth through their travel and do the job.

I'm hardly OCD about maintenance, and I've not treated these forks well so how come my crappy ancient forks all seem to work fine while half of you seem to have constant issues with worn stanchions and supposedly state of the art forks under 2 years old all wearing out?

You need to get you hands dirty girls, stop putting off the maintenance tasks or delegating to the LBS mechanic once you've bolloxed them through neglect.

South Wales, between Cwmcarn and Gethin (where Bikepark Wales is being constructed) So a weekend of riding within 30 mins of the workshop if courses are on a Friday night. 😉

The current CTD's generally need an improved or custom compression tune/set-up - ie: increased rising rate as otherwise they do tend to blow through travel such as you are experiencing, we have used Jaytech and MOJO for custom tunes based on rider weight and riding style/bike set-up. I don't have direct experience of LoCo's tuning work or others such as TF Tuned but i'm sure they are are equally as good going by reports on here and other forums.

As for the comment regarding rebound i stand by it, if your rebound was working to such an extent that the forks reacted or kicked back violently then at the very least that will lead to a loss of traction on the front end, especially when banked over at speed which would either result in a faceplant or loss of control.

We try and offer advice when setting a FS up for folk and we often head out for a first ride wi them as the 7stanes trail at Dalbeattie is only 20mins away from us - once the air pressure is set up and we have the rebound where we feel the fork is tracking correctly all that's left is to show the customer what the other modes or settings such as climb/trail/descend are for. I'm all for Fox trying to simplify the variable modes but i feel they dropped the ball slightly with the 2013 range of CTD equipped forks/shocks.

We try and offer advice when setting a FS up for folk and we often head out for a first ride wi them as the 7stanes trail at Dalbeattie is only 20mins away from us - once the air pressure is set up and we have the rebound where we feel the fork is tracking correctly all that's left is to show the customer what the other modes or settings such as climb/trail/descend are for.

That's a great idea/service.

I'm still in denial about the CTD shock, thinking that one day I'll get it just right, but at the moment I'm not quite happy with it. I'm a little angry about having to possibly spend more money on it to get it to work as I expected it to out of the box.

My sympathies to the OP.

Just a thought before you get rid of them .....

I've seen reasonable success (if your afforded the liberty) of stripping and servicing the fork and whilst the fork is apart adding a travel spacer.

If the fork is in 100mm mode say and is showing 20mm of wear on the exposed stanction then adding a 20mm spacer will drop the worn part into the legs.

I appreciate this is a work around (if possible with your fork) but may breathe some life into a fork you are destined to scrap/eBay.

I've friends that have had good success with Fox forks. Worn stanctions in 120mm mode. Travel dropped to either 100 or 80mm and then regular service intervals.

As I say it's a work around but could be worth a shot.

Just don't do it then sell them on 😉

We're planning to offer some course in basic servicing and maintainance later in the year when it quietens down a bit, for local clubs to start with and see how they go.

Is that wise? Equipping people with knowledge that helps them avoid needing your services so often?

How is the development at Gethin going? any proper news on that? it's been coming for well over 2 years now...

stilltortois, air volume spacer should sort those issues 😉

cookeaa, just air can and lower legs services and setup advice/service. We can do these jobs but really they're home service/routine maintainace jobs and people will buy seals, oil, etc from us too.

They're building Gethin now, have a had a few boys in who are working up there, think it's coming along nicely.

To my shame i've never done a lower leg removal and clean on any of my forks.

To be honest it looks fairly straightforward.

Am I right in thinking (even though all the videos don't show it) that you could do it without removing the forks from the bike.

Sure can rich, if you have everything set up on your work bench beforehand it should take less than 15mins with a bit of experience behind you to drop the lowers, clean/relube the foam rings, inspect the stantions and refit and fill with the correct weight and volume of oil.

letmetalktomark - Member
My sympathies to the OP.

Just a thought before you get rid of them .....

I've seen reasonable success (if your afforded the liberty) of stripping and servicing the fork and whilst the fork is apart adding a travel spacer.

If the fork is in 100mm mode say and is showing 20mm of wear on the exposed stanction then adding a 20mm spacer will drop the worn part into the legs.

I appreciate this is a work around (if possible with your fork) but may breathe some life into a fork you are destined to scrap/eBay.

I've friends that have had good success with Fox forks. Worn stanctions in 120mm mode. Travel dropped to either 100 or 80mm and then regular service intervals.

As I say it's a work around but could be worth a shot.

Just don't do it then sell them on

Posted 4 hours ago # Report-Post

Cheers for that advise, will look into that first.

(Its lucky I have two MTB's as it gives me a bit of thinking time)