45mm Zoke performance
 

I went out last weekend for the first ride on my 11 250 with the zoke-Ohlins suspension. The shock seems to be OK. Nothing special, but works as well as the shock on my 300 KTM. The front is another story. These are the worst performing forks I have ridden on in 25 years. I'm not posting on here to bag on GG in any way at all. I am just being honest and looking for advice on what to do to make them ride able.

The problem seems to be that they blow right through the stroke on compression and then feel really harsh. Rebound seems to be nonexistent. The front wheel won't stick to the ground for accurate steering in the tight woods I ride. I'm sawing the bars back and forth all the time to maintain control because the wheel is skipping off the ground.

I'm a 200lbs "A" level enduro rider riding mostly tight woods. I replaced the springs with .45s before I rode the bike. I've turned clickers with not a lot of improvement. Any insight for a cure would be welcomed.

I rode my 2011 Six Days 250 today for the first time.
I thought my 45mm forks actually worked better than the 50mm forks on my 2007 bike.
My rebound is set at 16 clicks out and the compression is at 18 clicks out.

It took me about 6 months to get the forks working good.

This is what I think,
1) sprung too soft
2) valved to stiff on the base valve
3) valved to light on the rebound
4) mid valve is too stiff and depending on the type of riding needs the float re-set.
5) oil level too high.

There is nothing that can be done with the clickers, it's either live with the ride (which would be a shame) or spend the $$ for a proper respring and valving.

Do a search, much info here.

I've heard from many that the Zokes really need time to be broken in before you know what you've got. Based on that I wouldn't do any major changes to them until then.

The zokes on my Husky lived up to that, but I still had to send them off. They had different issues, but were really bad.

Yeppers, worst forks I have ever ridden. GMP said there is a lot of info, and there is now. I have about 700 miles on this bike now and am still chasing down issues, however, they are much closer to what I expect or like. I think with 1 more re-shim of the rebound stack I will have control of the rebound dampening. These forks don't have a mid valve stack, just a blow off valve, and a stack has now been added. I think if a person was riding super slow tight woods and their speed was not all that high they could live with the forks in stock form. However, my pistons were not drilled out properly and that caused a lot of my initial problems.

I am not sure what I am going to do with the shock yet. Initially the forks sucked so bad the shock was good. However, I have the forks working well enough that the shock is starting to indicate I need to make improvements. I rode 3 KTM's and a Honda back to back with the my GG this weekend while testing. All of the bikes shocks felt better than my ohlins. The forks are close.

I just got my forks back from my suspention guy. He said (and I'll be showing my ignorance here in translation) that they are set up like old school motoocross forks that relied on orifice damping. He machined some holes in the spring seat and made some type of new part that replaced the black cylinder(?) in the forks, modified the compression stack and set the oil level at 130mm. Stock springs were okay for me at 178 lbs.

Beforehand, I wasn't using the last 3" of travel and thought the fork was very plush at the top of the stoke and way harsh towards the bottom.

After getting them back I am using most all the travel and they feel much more balanced across different terrain. They don't try to tuck as much under hard braking. I'd call it a 50% improvement over stock. Need to ride it more to see if any more tuning is needed. I've pretty happy with them for now after the changes.

Robby45, who'd you use for your suspension work?

Sounds like he worked on the bottoming cone. Funny, I never thought that was a big deal. I think its more straight forward than that, at least mine and others have responded that way. Too soft a spring with too much preload, too much compression bleed (too little LS comp), too much high speed comp, no midvalve, and WAY too little rebound make the fork feel like it does. I use all of my travel on the biggest hits like you should, but my fork stays up in the travel much better now, and has no bad habits.

Check out LTR. He does very good work at a very reasonable cost. The forks are high quality, but Marzocchi sends them out valved for the criminally insane.

Phillip Graham at SoPro Suspension.

Enduro Engineering Suspension did the fork and shock on my 250 and it works great.

Mine had to be re-anodized, and I'm real anal about the clamps and alignment. Love the action with proper setup but not impressed with the durability. I hope the 48s are better in this respect.

Brent. You and I should'nt be so negative! on the possitive side ,lack of quality components make those forks weigh much less than the competitions.

LMAO. Well, they are .5 lbs lighter than my WP's. My 11 GG 300 EC weighs 256's with 1 gallon of gas in it and Shoria battery. So 255 is a safe bet. I wonder if they put lead panels inside the frame?

OK, I will stop being negative. My only two complaints about this bike have been the forks and the e start. It works 25% of the time. Coming from KTM recently, I did have Honda's, Kawasaki's, and Yamaha's too, this bike is hard to work on. KTM's are so freaking easy. Oh well, the handling, motor, and tranny, are sweet. There, I mentioned some positive! Yay.

The more I read about these forks the more I understand why the people I talked to pushed me towards a Sachs-equipped model. They didn't say low quality but used the term "basic". I'm sure the Sachs units have issues as well, but you guys are making me feel better about the decision.

I wish I could have swung a leg over a couple differently equipped bikes. Honestly a stock suspension usually doesn't work well for me anyway so a revalve is expected, however this set up is overly surprising. It is a basic open chamber fork with base quality components. It can be worked over and will likely be fine.

I tell people, who ask, to buy the GG and see how the forks work for them. I explain that they may need springs and a revalve but it should NOT be something that prevents them from giving this bike a shot. All BS aside I am glad I did it and have some experience now with GG. It opened me up to bikes outside the KTM regime. If you have a suspension guy with experience in Marzocchi forks you will be fine. They are super simple to work on and should not be expensive to re-shim etc.

Gee, that's too bad. I would still call them high quality pieces. The valving has nothing to do with quality of craftsmenship. The hard coating on my fork sliders is still in good shape. My forks have been to LTR after they had about 2000 miles on them, and no internal parts were worn or in need of replacement other than shims for a revalve request. My bike is easily upwards of 3000 miles now, and the forks do not show signs of looseness, leaking, or flaking of coatings. While I did not inspect the internals when the forks were disassembled, I'd say they are good. After Les' rebuild of them, I'd say they outperform the Ohlins I had on my previous Gas Gas, and that fork was pretty good. I also am an A enduro rider, and ride in sloppy conditions, so it's not like the forks live the life of a garage/parking lot queen. Of course, KTM and Gas Gas riders do tend to know how to ride, and ride a lot. I digress, but just an observation.

Well, I certainly didn't expect to stir up so many people with my original post.

I'm new to Gas Gas bikes but have raced off road for more than 40 years. Although now older (64) and admittedly slower than I used to be I still retain the ability to evaluate suspension performance accurately. These are not state of the art forks, but.... they should be able to be reworked by a knowledgeable suspension guy to work better.

Thanks to all the people who pointed out what the internals consist of. I didn't have a clue what was in there. All I did was pop off the cap, put in heavier springs and button it back up. Sounds like basic valving stacks etc.

I'm going to have Matt Stavish at Checkpoint Offroad in Scandia, Minnesota work on my forks. I've known Matt for several years from the races we both went to. You may remember Matt as a former factory Gas Gas rider and ISDE guy. He told me he had experience reworking zoke forks and could make them better.

There are thousands of these forks in service on GGs, Huskys, and others. They work awesome in the woods when set up right. I think Brent, being a fast desert guy, is a little out of the box as far as the bikes scope with regard to OEM setup. I completely understand this as its not setup as a desert bike, and no doubt a stiffer CC fork (perhaps the new 48s?) would be much closer. However, for the average to even fast woods rider these are very ridable stock and eaisly tuned.

Matt is a great guy and should do well for you.

GMP, I think my problem with the pistons not being correctly drilled would have been a big problem for anyone. That being said, it would have required someone with knowledge to recognize this issue. For example, my suspension guy noticed it, handed me the pistons, and I promptly grabbed a drill. I just want folks to know if they get a bike equipped like mine to look for this issue and then tune from there.

I am riding a wide variety of terrain that spotlights suspension issue's. This is what I mean: Currently our mountains are covered in 10 feet of snow so we have to ride the desert. Within our desert, 3000-6000 feet, we have wide open, sand washes, big whoops, hard pack, single track, to gnarly 1st gear rocky canyons. Clearly it is hard to make a suspension do all of this well. Mine in stock form did none of it well! 1-3 gear rocky sections was a ride of death as this bike deflected off of everything.

Just so that it is better understood I was not the only person who rode the bike the first 150 miles. I had my buddies ride it in the same sections I rode it in, spun clickers etc, and asked for feedback from their level, weight, and rider perspective. No one liked the fork action. Once the pistons were drilled we all got along a lot better with it. This brings me to my second point of commenting on the forum. The rebound stack was so far off that it created new issue's. IF I had fixed the pistons and the rebound at the same time there is a very good chance I would have been decently happy with the forks.

I don't know if my babbling will help anyone or not but if they target these two areas on a 45 zoke that feels weird to them, they may wind up very happy and have little to no expense into the whole ordeal.

OK, headed to Texas for the national. Y'all take care.

The reason these forks respond so well to tuning is because they start out so bad in stock form. A one eyed parrot could work on them, and there's probably a few out there that make a business doing so, and it would be considered only an improvement. I especially like how when you remove the base valve all the shims stay in the cartridge so in most cases you dont even know what Guido, who's on transfer from Marzochi's pogo stick division, in his paranoid delusions was aiming for.These forks are no improvement over the GG WP-43's of ten years ago. I should add that my Beta's zokes were valved differently, different pison too and work much better in stock form that being said they are still Velveeta.

Mine all fell out the first time too. Not now!

Here is what my rebound stack is currently...still too soft with .46 springs and 5wt oil.
All shims are .10
Current:22, 22, 20, 18, 12, 19, 17, 15, 12.

Stock: 22, 12, 19, 17, 15, 12

Installed another 22 and it is too slow. So I am going to experiment with a 21 and 19. I think I will try the 19 between the 20 and 18 first. I should be really close to what I need.

Brent, I know this thread has got kinda long, and I don't know how different your forks are to my "07 zoke shivers (45), but I have spent a lot of time shuffling shims, oil heights etc. and have reached a point where I'm pretty happy. The thing is, I found 5wt oil to be too light and could not get any good results with it. I use 7.5wt oil at 110mm from top.

Yes, it is likely too light. Spectro 125/150 is a good oil for the Zokes. Either that or Honda SS7 and SS8 mixed 50/50, works out the same on the viscosity charts. I used to do this when a Honda shop was in town, made things easy. Different brand "5W" or "7W" oils are all over the map, you need to look at the viscosity.

Oil viscosity has much more effect on rebound than compression.

I think you'd be better off with a simple single stage stack. That OEM stack is different than my '07 was, both goofy though. IMO most of the problem is mid to high speed, drop the x over work on the mid section down.

I tried 10, 7, and 7.5 wt oils. The 10 was still too fast but better of course. Since I am running a completely different stack in the base and added a mid valve I am not certain the heavier oil is good. I rode it Saturday with 5 wt and Sunday with with a blend that was close to 8.5. I just needed to speed up the compression 4 clicks but rebound was still a bit fast.

Curious of why you guys like heavier wt oils vs the standard of 5? Most suspension tuners set up for 5wt for various reasons.

Well, the 7.5 is what the marzocchi manual states for "temperate" climates. I have been mixing 5 and 10 wt. have tried different brands etc but definately found 5wt felt terrible. It depends what shims you are using - I haven't doubled up on any face shims, I have removed the bleed shims that were stock on both compression and rebound, and I have progressively increased the rebound stack and slightly softened the compression. I haven't altered the midvalve float yet, but I often think about that!
I think I saw Glenns (GMP) shim stacks posted at one stage - I seem to recall he has doubled up on some of the face shims.
It sounds like you've already tried a few things - I would persevere with what you are doing, noting the changes and what does what etc, and not get too sidetracked by what other people are saying. It's such a subjective thing.

I wouldn't know where to look for viscosity charts. Does anyone know how Amsoil susp. fluid falls on those charts?

The issue is not with the quality of the hard coating - it is very good - it is that the upper wall thickness is thin combined with the 3 bolt bottom clamp with small bolts. It is difficult for even the best mechanic to properly torque the given setup.

The wall thickness issue arose when gasgas spec'ed the fork to be interchangeable with the WP fork it replaced (uses same triple clamps).

These issues should be resolved when gasgas moves to a 48mm zoke with more wall thickness on upper tube of fork. They should also make it a very, very high priority to drop the 3 bolt configuration on the bottom clamp to avoid problems - two larger bolts please.

jeff

Yes, all true. Should have been more clear about what I meant by durability.

Just watch the oil, keep up on services. Don't worry about it unless all of a sudden your oil is VERY dirty. Mine would be normal dirty for a over 100 hrs and I figured that was from the damper rods that were obviously being polished down, then one day mud.:eek: When you change seals, clean and eyeball the inside of the upper tubes for wear.

Some of the negative comments here are highly inaccurate and pushed a bit far into the "name calling" arena. Given that it does unfair damage to the brand, at a certain point, it crosses a line and violates the user agreement here.

Kashima hard coating has been around since the mid-80s - it's nothing new...

The materials used and the hard coating on european forks are typically very high quality. And the marzocchi falls into this group - they are high quality forks that do lack coherence in the area of the oem valving.

I do find it humorous that those who rave about the quality of ohlins forks are also slamming on the marzocchi. Look at the castings on the axle clamps between the two forks - The main components come from the same factory...

I had a set of cannondale ohlins forks on my xr250r trail bike - Les had cannondale 45mm zokes on his nearly identical xr250r, we traded forks because the ohlins have more bling value and he gets more respect from his customers. I can't tell the difference in fork action and don't view the quality of the construction of the ohlins or zoke forks to be any better or worse than the other. The 45mm open chamber marzocchi is a well built and very good off road fork once it is valved properly.

jeff

This one isn't going to end well.:eek:

Sticking to facts, there are different grades or specs of forks of the same brand. For example the Husky Zokes I've been into have hard coated damper rods, no bleed holes in the rebound pistons, and a thicker wall. Some are valved bad and some decent. Back to Ohlins, the absolute worst fork I ever rode in the woods was a Cannondale Ohlins with the Pro Action setup. Absolutely ridiculous valving, not even close. Very nice once dialed in, but seal life was below average and they are a PIA to service compared to most forks without the tools.

Blame it on me . My mental illness is on full tilt waiting for riding season to start, more prickly than usual.


For those of you still running Ohlins 46mm I have found switching to oe Kayaba 46 mm fork seals greatly increases seal life. The oil seal is .5 mm shorter in height but i experianced no floating problems whatsoever.

Facts are good...

The gasgas zoke isn't "worse" than the husky zoke - except for the one thing we mentioned above that you ran into (wall thickness difference) - at least on average - in talking to Les - they all have clear hard coat on the cartridges and different models use different pistons - some with bleed holes. etc. There is no unusual or abnormal wear indicating any issues with the hard coat that is used.

And to add a little fact to your "PIA to service" comment on the ohlins - The double bushing on the ohlins fork complicates servicing it. And on the topic of ohlins - in case I wasn't clear above - marzocchi manufactures the fork legs for ohlins....

jeff

You can't bash on the suspension that comes on the bike in an unfair way - it is damaging to gasgas and it is damaging to clay - the u.s importer. Over the period of a year - hundreds will visit this website to decide if a gasgas is in their future - inaccurately calling the front fork "crap" without any specifics is unfair and it is damaging - at a certain point, pushing it too far crosses over into "hateful".

You lash out in a way that violates the user agreement here - period. It isn't a "veiled threat" - it is very straightforward - if you violate the user agreement you get a time out or banned permanently.

I have previously warned you about your behavior. My time is valuable and my patience is thin. Don't waste my time. Don't draw attention to yourself or elevate yourself at someone else's expense. And do not make personal attacks on others.


jeff

Zoke cartridges are all internally hard coated, GG damper rods (at least on mine and an '05 I worked on) appeared to not be coated, perhaps the newer stuff is different. Husky's have a gold anodizing on these parts that seems to stay put.

IMO, all the talk about OEM valving setup being no good should not even be on the table as a decision point. Until now, the US market had no clout and feedback was limited. I would expect the next bikes to be closer to the American target.

The Zokes on my 011 are not internally hardcoated. And in this case of valving from my perspective I beg to differ as well. One of the strong points the kept me loyal to the brand was the fact that the stock suspension was allways good enough that only respringing was in the works. Yes KTM's have their problems as well but when you have to factor in the costs of a revalve, head and carb mods, nessesary for anybody who's anything more capable than a novice rider and finaly resale value, the gasgas starts to loose any advantage it started out with.

The ohlins are not that difficult to service provided you have a few factory tools, I dont, didnt and still managed to service them effectivly and consistintly for the five years I owned them. They are and should be considered a high performance fork and as such require more frequent servicing to work at their full potencial .As a final point I hardly think a comparison between a ten year old cannondale speced ohlins and a modern 011 zoke 45 is fair.

The damper rods have a clear hard coat.... And I get this from Les at LT-Racing who has done 100s of them. And has done '11s too... Again, your statements aren't accurate and it unfairly characterizes the fork. Come on - if they didn't have hard coat - the oil would be black in about 5 minutes.... Think about it....

jeff