[ÆX]

this is a OE fork on a kona i did.
thought it might help out some of you
who think its hard. its not. it is worth cutting
your OE spring, it feels great.

this fork is air one side it has 75psi in it.

 

[hungryleprican]

flat?

 

[Bicyclist]

75PSI??? I thought those seals weren't designed for that kind of pressure...

Looks way better though.

 

[kealan]

i had one of those forks and got rid of it... maybe i should of kept it

 

[ÆX]

75PSI??? I thought those seals weren't designed for that kind of pressure...

Looks way better though.

30-65 psi is the recommended, but that is to compensate 100mm
of fork travel volume, its fine with 50mm could go 100 maybe but
might start topping out hard.

 

[V-Dub GTI]

flat?

as in the end of the spring, like it comes stock, so it sits flush.

 

[Evil4bc]

i had one of those forks and got rid of it... maybe i should of kept it

No you did the right thing , that fork doesn't have the best internals and the steel stanchions are REALLY heavy .

Alex just a question , in the pic were you show the cut section of spring that you "added" into the lower stack , so you could reduce the fork , what did you do with the stock progressively wound negative spring .

If your using both that fork isn't going to have the same spring rate for the negative as it will for the positive , this will make the fork either top out harshly or this could be the reason your having to run excess air pressure .

Personally I do not recommend trying to lower any of the OEM marzocchi forks , from my experience this isn't the "safest " idea .
IE: The thinner section of the internal butted stanchions when lowered meets up with the bushings and really isn't thick enough to handle forces exerted from jumping .
When run at longer travel the fork will flex in this section to prevent fork damage . IE: forward to rear deflection


These forks are OEM on lower end bikes for a reason , and were not intended or designed for jumping . Please keep this in mind if you plan on doing this mod featured above . You can also refer to the intended use chart on MArzocchi's website .

 

[fireman]

BCD, what size tubing (interior and exterior diamater) did you use for that spacer?

thanks

 

[ÆX]

BCD, what size tubing (interior and exterior diamater) did you use for that spacer?

thanks

i drilled out some .75 od .5 id to 17/32id.
it was just something i had laying around.

you could use some pvc or about anything
a littel over .5 id.

 

[ÆX]

No you did the right thing , that fork doesn't have the best internals and the steel stanchions are REALLY heavy .

yeah it is, but it worked better that OE, thats all this KID was looking
for

Alex just a question , in the pic were you show the cut section of spring that you "added" into the lower stack , so you could reduce the fork , what did you do with the stock progressively wound negative spring .

no i trashed the cut, and kept the prog-neg-spring. i just put a
alum spacer above it.

Personally I do not recommend trying to lower any of the OEM marzocchi forks , from my experience this isn't the "safest " idea .
IE: The thinner section of the internal butted stanchions when lowered meets up with the bushings and really isn't thick enough to handle forces exerted from jumping .
When run at longer travel the fork will flex in this section to prevent fork damage . IE: forward to rear deflection

not on this fork, its straight wall steel uppers, it in fact made it
stronger! it steepens the head angle reducing leverage in the fork.

These forks are OEM on lower end bikes for a reason , and were not intended or designed for jumping . Please keep this in mind if you plan on doing this mod featured above . You can also refer to the intended use chart on MArzocchi's website .

i put this up for all the kids who have OE stuff and can't afford nice
fork. this will make there forks last longer and work better for
street-trail-park.

 

[Bicyclist]

No you did the right thing , that fork doesn't have the best internals and the steel stanchions are REALLY heavy .

Alex just a question , in the pic were you show the cut section of spring that you "added" into the lower stack , so you could reduce the fork , what did you do with the stock progressively wound negative spring .

If your using both that fork isn't going to have the same spring rate for the negative as it will for the positive , this will make the fork either top out harshly or this could be the reason your having to run excess air pressure .

Personally I do not recommend trying to lower any of the OEM marzocchi forks , from my experience this isn't the "safest " idea .
IE: The thinner section of the internal butted stanchions when lowered meets up with the bushings and really isn't thick enough to handle forces exerted from jumping .
When run at longer travel the fork will flex in this section to prevent fork damage . IE: forward to rear deflection


These forks are OEM on lower end bikes for a reason , and were not intended or designed for jumping . Please keep this in mind if you plan on doing this mod featured above . You can also refer to the intended use chart on MArzocchi's website .

So every kid with a $700 Kona is supposed to buy a lowered Z1 or 4X for over half their bike's cost?

 

[basikbiker]

ouch.. sad but true

 

[Axis]

Nice job. I did this to a friends DJ Pro quite awhile ago. We have riden RaysMTB all of this winter and his fork it tottaly fine.

 

[Evil4bc]

So every kid with a $700 Kona is supposed to buy a lowered Z1 or 4X for over half their bike's cost?

No not at all, I'm more trying to save kids from broken necks from the steel stanchions snapping when they case .

There about 100 documanted cases of this fork breaking on pinkbike and other sites either at the crown ot the stanchions when used for jumping .

 

[WestCoastHucker]

my homeboy had one of those and i had a DJ1 with a destroyed upper chassis, we swapped intenals and lowers. now he has a 65mm Dirt Jam Pro OE with external rebound control (no more topping out harshly) and 20mm lowers.

 

[ÆX]

No not at all, I'm more trying to save kids from broken necks from the steel stanchions snapping when they case .

There about 100 documanted cases of this fork breaking on pinkbike and other sites either at the crown ot the stanchions when used for jumping .

i searched pink bike for pics of the STANCHIONS bearing and could
not find any, lots of arches and a few crown. crown would be just
as bad as stanchions granted, but i think lowered would put less
stress on the cowns and don't see the one i did breaking.

i agree they are low end forks but kids are riding them and will
continue till the break, i was just giving them safer option IMO.

find a pic for me of the stanchions breaking for me.

 

[WestCoastHucker]

i searched pink bike for pics of the STANCHIONS....

well, it is pinkbike. you probably should have also searched for "stantions" "stanshons" "snankchions" .....

 

[ÆX]

hahaahah, yeah, no kidding

 

[dan wask]

Can someone explain to me why the spacer you put in still allows the fork to lower ?

 

[Evil4bc]

i searched pink bike for pics of the STANCHIONS bearing and could
not find any, lots of arches and a few crown. crown would be just
as bad as stanchions granted, but i think lowered would put less
stress on the cowns and don't see the one i did breaking.

i agree they are low end forks but kids are riding them and will
continue till the break, i was just giving them safer option IMO.

find a pic for me of the stanchions breaking for me.

I dint have much luck on PB either , but I also only looked for about 2 sec .
After talking with Marzocchi today I mentioed this fork to them and there reply was this .... Oh that fork , according to zoke they had a bunch of these forks sent over as OEM warranty replacement forks for the ones that kept breaking , accounting wanted to put them on "close out " sales and engineering advised them not too , as this was a fork we were trying to get off the market and out of customers hands not trying to get this fork into customers hands which would eventually lead to more warranty problems .

Alex please understand this has noting to do with your how too ( which was very informative BTW ) , I have herd horror stories about this fork from every person i spoke with at zoke about this , I'm just passing useful information on to the intended end user .

The newer forks with aluminum stanchions have much more forward to aft flex and will accept a bigger / harder hit without breaking .

Marzocchi introduced the intended use chart a few years ago and this wasent to humor there marketing dept . There is allot of useful information contained in the intended use chart and give you a very good idea of what the forks were orignally designed to do .

 

[ÆX]

Can someone explain to me why the spacer you put in still allows the fork to lower ?

in this pic you can see the alum spacer, when you cut out the
main spring by 50mm there is slack in there that has to be taken
up bu something. the alum spacer does that pulling the lowers and the chrome rod with it up to the spring.