Manitou Dorado Air Spring Issue

Short version first. When I add air to the fork is only pressurizing the negative air chamber, not the positive. The more air I put in the fork, the more it sinks down into the travel. Picture attached is with ~70psi in the chamber. Also it is having issues self-equalizing the chambers. Is this a common issue? Any suggestions? I think I'm just going to take the entire thing apart and clean/re-assemble it per the Manitou instructions. Anyone have any other tips?

The long version is that the fork has recently been acting up pretty badly. It's ride characteristics change dramatically during a run, can go from feeling too soft at the start, to being way too firm at the bottom, or vice versa. I have also noticed that when I take air out of the fork with a pump, the gauge drops down 5-10psi and then creeps back up to sometimes even more than it read before. It is really strange, and makes me think that something is up with the self-equalization parts.

Any input?

Thanks,
Brent

Got it sorted late last night. The poppet/check valve was the culprit.

I'm not sure how it happened, but the "air valve shaft" or whatever Manitou calls that rod that actuates the poppet valve to open the flow of air to the main chamber wasn't set right. Could have been wrong from the factory, or I guess the poppet could have tightened up somehow (not sure how).

The rod was recessed below the top of the air valve (proper spec is 1mm protruding) which meant my pump wasn't fully opening the poppet valve, thus only pressurizing the negative chamber and causing the weird creeping of air between the two chambers. Seems fine now, positive chamber pressurizes, and when you dump air out of it there is no delayed equalization taking place.

Upon further review, my fork was also sent from the factory in 180mm mode!