[Megan Black]

I am absolutely mechanically illiterate, I'm too embarrassed to ask people I ride with tech questions cause feel like they think I should already know since I've been downhilling for a year now...

So I come to a non-involved party for help!

I have a '03 super t and people have explained the mechanics of it to me 1,000 times but it's not clicking. I have trouble with terms, example:

compression: is that simply what compresses during movement (landing a drop)? is it JUST the spring or spring and oil combined?

sometimes i've heard the term compression dampening (damping or dampening, damnit! i've heard both from a billion people). what is that? what is dampening by itself?

rebound: how fast or slow the shock returns to it's normal position, right? is that controlled by oil?

and lastly, how do the knobs on the tops of the stanchions relate to the adjustment of these things (i.e. when you turn to left/right what PHYSICAL changes are being made??)

thank you!!!!

 

[Sir_Crackien]

spring controls only sag theoratically but it will stop the frok from botteming

compression control the downward movment of the fork. pevents botteming

rebound control the upward movment of the fork. pevents topout and controls how the fork reacts after a hit(too light on a drop it can buck you too slow the fork will not be able to absorb the next impact because it is still too far in its travel.

as for the adj themselves think about it this way righty thighty(more dampening slow compression and rebound) lefty loosy(less dampening slow compression and rebound)

the adj close and open a value in the fork

pm me with more questions it you feel like it

 

[Wumpus]

2003 Super T Manual(.pdf)

Take a look at Chapter 5.

 

[DßR]

On the top of the Super T, the bigger black knobs adjust preload -- basically how stiff the spring rate starts out. Turn those clockwise to make the fork sag less, it'll be less plush, but that may be what you want. I use zero turns of preload on all of my forks and shocks.

The little slot-screw-head knobs inside the preload adjusters are the rebound adjusters. Turn those clockwise to make the fork rebound slower. I tend to run mine pretty fast so it can keep up with high-speed stuff; if it's too slow, the fork will tend to run further down in its travel, which will make it stiffer.

Compression in a Super T is not adjustable, basically the compression concept is that it will make a fork feel more or less "springy". IDEALLY, it strongly resists slow-speed movement, like from you pushing down on the fork, but will allow high-speed stuff (rocks, bumps) to be fully soaked up. You can affect the compression in a Super T with oil weight -- 5wt oil will give it less compression damping, and 10wt will give it more. You should not use anything more or less than 5 or 10wt, for the sake of your rebound.

Thicker oil (10wt) rebounds slower as well, but the proper way to deal with your rebound is thru the rebound knobs. As an aside, some forks like Boxxers have such ineffective rebound adj. that you have to do it with oil, I think 20wt or 30wt is the preferred "rebound speed" on the Boxxers prior to '03....

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

you´ll get like a million different answers here from people claiming the truth.
so ill claim truth as well.

the word is damping.

a spring is a device that compresses and stores energy, then expands and returns the energy. a spring alone without a damping device (damper or shock absorber) would oscillate a lot (bounce up and down).

the damper is a device used to transform the energy stored in the spring, from motion into heat. thus instead of bouncing up and down for a while until it settles, a spring-damper combo reduces the bouncing a lot, because the energy to push you back up is transformed into heat (other kind of energy).

how?? a bike damper is usually a cylinder full of oil in which a plate with little holes is moved thru.
the resistance of the oil to the movement of the bored plate is what "wastes" the energy stored in the spring, so that there is no energy to make the up and down bounce.

how much resistance depends on the size of the holes, and the viscosity of the oil.
bigger holes, less resistance.

compression damping refers to the resistance of the plate to go thru the oil when you compress the spring. when you turn it up, what you are physically doing is reducing the size of the holes in the plate in the oil, so that less oil can go thru, thus consuming more energy to compress.

rebound damping refers to the opposite process, that when the spring de-compress or expands.

more compression, means it will take more time to compress the spring given the same force. more rebound, means it will take more time for the spring to fully expand after being compressed.
and viceversa.