Quote:
Originally Posted by motopsycho87
I'm more than happy to have a go myself, just wanted a little guidance getting them apart mostly.
Is it possible to just turn the forks up side down and remove the compression valve without disassembling the rest of the fork? Also, do these forks have any mid valving or is everything compression covered in the bottom valve?
I've been searching for the answers to these questions all day and I'm starting to feel like my only option is to just try and find out ..
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You can indeed turn the fork upside down, use a 6 point socket with the lead in/taper ground flat for a solid fit between the very soft aluminium BV.
When people say no mid valve, technically the valve is there, but the valving has been setup to work as a check valve with a large float and very stiff stack. Ie it simply blows open. On the opposite stroke the rebound stack does the work.
The base valve controls the flow of the oil displaced by the damping rod as it enters the cartridge only, so obviously adding a mid valve stack that then slows the rate at which the piston can move within the cartridge adds significantly. It flows much more oil for any given displacement and as such has a more profound influence.
Opening the cartridge to get to the mid piston takes a bit more work, and some tooling. Nothing you won't be able to handle. If they haven't been opened before heat helps too.
So imo, you have two choices. You can remain in the dark about the mid valve setup and try to tune the base valve to obtain the result you want. Quick and crude, and leaves some to be desired. Or you can take the time to pull down what you have, try and get some feedback on where to go and make some changes.
The problem you have does sound like a check valve mid though, as it offers little damping support. Leaves the spring and base valve to control everything, which can cause exactly what you describe where they are soft and feel a bit willowish on small chop, yet can't flow enough to take the harshness out of the sharp hits. Often too little damping can also feel harsh as the fork dives deep into the stroke.