Lower Leg Service Questions (Lyrik)

Has anyone had any luck with Alibaba or equivalent for fork seals? 

Regarding damper, I also use that $7 Lucas oil for my dampers and do those once a year. Never any issues, including the two bikes with Avalanche Open-bath dampers. I used it in my rear RS shock too, although I will admit my rear shock doesn’t feel great, but it never really did.

I have Alibaba foam rings. Ripped the factory ones on a new fork doing a lower leg service/travel change, and didn't think it was worth buying a whole seal kit just for new foam rings.

Seem OK (in a Z1), but maybe don't quite hold as much oil as the originals - based only on me squeezing them in a bowl of fork oil and no type of quantitative testing. They do seem to fit better than the factory foam rings. The factory rings seemed to be just slightly undersize and were prone to bunching and twisting on reassembly.

I havent bought foam wipers from aliexpress, but I did try their silicone grips. Took them off without riding them as they were spinners. It makes me question any sort of foam/rubber knock off product. It looks the same but likely doesn't quite work the same. I'll go with original manufacturer stuff when it comes to fork parts or anything that is structural on a bike.

RockShox you can generally get away with servicing yourself. I haven’t done a charger damper yet, but I think the only special tool it requires a bench vice. Their air shock required a $12 adapter that to “charge” the damper, and a pipe strap to get the air can off. Dunbar had the adapter in stock and other shops were able to get it for me so it’s not totally uncommon.

There’s a manual for all of Rockshoxs products and dampers that I’ve generally found easy to follow. Take a look for your fork/shock and see if it’s worth doing for you.

I am not a pro and I have had the whole damper or airspring spin in the lowers instead of allowing me to unthread the foot bolt. Definitely use a torque wrench when doing things back up and use lock-tite where it says to.

Fox and Xfusion typically use a nitrogen charge port, but there’s a guy on mtbr that screwed in a fuel rail bleed port off of an old ford V8 engine that allowed him to charge a fox shock with a regular air shock. Fox lists the pressures for nitrogen, which I assume would be the same for air. Xfusion is a guess based on similar fox and RockShox pressures. Probably just send those shocks off for service.

Taking anything apart that’s pressurized is dangerous. Make sure you release all the pressure in a shock or fork before you begin to disassemble it.

Posted by: JBV

do you DIY the damper? i thought that was strictly a pro service center job. i've sent mine (shocks) to Fluid Function in the past, but never had the fork damper serviced. 200 hour interval on the Rockshox service manual page.

No I don't do my own RockShox damper service. The lower leg service is where my comfort zone ends. So I'll do 2 or 3 lower services depending on how the fork is feeling and then send it away for a full service.

My MRP Ribbon coil uses an open bath damper so I bought the bleed tool and I'll be trying my first damper service this year. You just dump the oil, refill with clean oil and then bleed it without really taking the internals apart at all so it seems like something I can do. Not having to mail away that fork would be nice.

Avalanche Racing offers an open bath damper for RS forks. I've enjoyed custom rear shock dampers, but never done a fork yet. It's a lot of $$, but OTOH if I can do the damper service at home that would balance out in terms of cost in a few years. Plus based on how nice the custom tuned rear shocks have worked the ride quality would likely be amazing.

Posted by: Vikb

My MRP Ribbon coil uses an open bath damper so I bought the bleed tool and I'll be trying my first damper service this year. You just dump the oil, refill with clean oil and then bleed it without really taking the internals apart at all so it seems like something I can do. Not having to mail away that fork would be nice.

Avalanche Racing offers an open bath damper for RS forks. I've enjoyed custom rear shock dampers, but never done a fork yet. It's a lot of $$, but OTOH if I can do the damper service at home that would balance out in terms of cost in a few years. Plus based on how nice the custom tuned rear shocks have worked the ride quality would likely be amazing.

The old RockShox dampers were pretty much the same. For the RC and R2C2 and RT3 at least, you generally just dumped the oil and filled it back up, didn't even need to bleed it.

I had the same thought and have 2 avalanche dampers. The Boxxer damper has been a great purchase as its fit every DH bike I've had for the last 10 years. The Pike damper is a bit harder to stomach as it only fits my non-boost 27.5 fork. I do like how little I need to service the fork, but most stock dampers are pretty good now. I wouldn't buy another one.