[Sandwich]

I'm starting to think something is wrong with my boxxer. I had a 2008 WC and an AVY DHF before this, and both were smoother/plusher/handled better in small rock gardens. At the end of the day, my hands are hamburger from blisters. The fork seems to do ok in big bump stuff, but the little chunder is not smoothed out.

Outside of the fact that I may just be a wuss, I've heard rumors of defective early 2010 internals...I know mine is a very early boxxer. Are they replacing old internals with new good ones? What's the best avenue to pursue for this? Any other suggestions?

 

[LOOnatic]

Is this a Team/WC or a race?
I know the early team/wc had a rebound assembly that had a ton of stiction. My race did not as it was moco as a donor for the AVY cart but my buddys WC that i fixed had that problem. RS sent a new assembly and he is happy. Take apart your damper leg and cycle the rebound assembly back and forth. If it doesn't cycle back and forth smoothly thats your problem.
Remember too that the 15w that lubes the lowers in the bottom gets low quickly so you gotta stay on top of that or it will get dry and yes, small bump sensitivity will also suffer.

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

as a general rule, rockshox blows hemorrhoidal squirrel´ ass.

 

[Sandwich]

yes, it's a team. I believe the rebound assembly was replaced by the PO.

 

[BIGHITR]

Is this a Team/WC or a race?
I know the early team/wc had a rebound assembly that had a ton of stiction. My race did not as it was moco as a donor for the AVY cart but my buddys WC that i fixed had that problem. RS sent a new assembly and he is happy. Take apart your damper leg and cycle the rebound assembly back and forth. If it doesn't cycle back and forth smoothly thats your problem.
Remember too that the 15w that lubes the lowers in the bottom gets low quickly so you gotta stay on top of that or it will get dry and yes, small bump sensitivity will also suffer.

How would you know if you buy a 2010 Boxxer Team if it's an early model? Is there a serial number or other way of knowing if you buy one? And does RockShox know of this problem and warrant it if you send it back?

 

[LOOnatic]

as a general rule, rockshox blows hemorrhoidal squirrel´ ass.

Quit being a jacka$$ brah. All brands have problems.

 

[LOOnatic]

How would you know if you buy a 2010 Boxxer Team if it's an early model? Is there a serial number or other way of knowing if you buy one? And does RockShox know of this problem and warrant it if you send it back?

Im not sure how to tell externally. If you have your shop call RS they can probably tell you by the serial #. If you ask for a rebound assembly they will usually send a new to the shop and then the shop has to send the old part back.

 

[IH8Rice]

Quit being a jacka$$ brah. All brands have problems.

no,hes right

 

[LOOnatic]

no,hes right

Ok Mr. Negative if you say so....

 

[Sandwich]

ok, so besides the sissy fight, what can i do to get my fork to perform the way i want it to?

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

Quit being a jacka$$ brah. All brands have problems.

over the last 2 years, i´ve bought 3 different rockshox products:
now consider i use my bikes, on average once a week.

2009 Rockshox Tora: it only has 40mm of travel now, something internal seized after 16 months of XC use.

2010 Rockshox Domain: the best one so far, basically because its the most basic model with no features other than rebound damper (so basically, nowhere to mess it up). the seals started leaking oil after 6 months of use.

2010 Rockshox Totem 2-step: the worst one so far. play in the lowers after 4 rides, slight oil leak after 8 rides. 2-step sucks (travel wont go back to full 180mm), and compression adjustment stopped working after 2 months.

i find it extraordinarily hard to believe, 3 out 3 faulty products are random chance. IMHO their products are grossly underengineered and their QC is horrendous

 

[LOOnatic]

ok, so besides the sissy fight, what can i do to get my fork to perform the way i want it to?

1st off you need to rule out a bad rebound damper causing stiction.
Just loosen the rebound damper at the bottom of the damper side, tap it loose, remove stantion assembly and then cycle the rebound rod in and out.
If its bad you'll feel lots of stiction and call RS for a new one.
Lets rule this out before we do anything else and i'll make me a sandwich in the meantime

 

[ridiculous]

There's also a good chance that the damper rod is at an angle considering how bad the RS lowers casting is. My 2010 damper rod was at min +5 deg off perpendicular and I had similar findings as the OP, crap on the small stuff, ok on the big. My lowers were also off perpendicular in the axle plane as well.

Good luck.

 

[LOOnatic]

There's also a good chance that the damper rod is at an angle considering how bad the RS lowers casting is. My 2010 damper rod was at min +5 deg off perpendicular and I had similar findings as the OP, crap on the small stuff, ok on the big. My lowers were also off perpendicular in the axle plane as well.

Good luck.

Good call.
I know of a few people with this problem with stock forks and if you politely complain to RS they will warranty the lowers. However, they dont take the word of some guy over the phone. You HAVE to go to a shop and have the shop do the warranty call. My advice would be to take it apart yourself and walk into a shop and prove the the condition and then have them call it in.

 

[ridiculous]

Good call.
I know of a few people with this problem with stock forks and if you politely complain to RS they will warranty the lowers. However, they dont take the word of some guy over the phone. You HAVE to go to a shop and have the shop do the warranty call. My advice would be to take it apart yourself and walk into a shop and prove the the condition and then have them call it in.

Yeah. I had my issue handled by a buddy's shop. They gave me a special "crash replacement" price. Needless to say, RS is not one of my favorite companies.

 

[Idahoo]

Also just FYI, on the 2010 compression assembly, there were complaints of the high speed/low speed affecting each other instead of working independently. This is in addition to rebound issues as mentioned above. That is why Rockshoxx came out with a new compression cart as well as a rebound cart for 2011. Basically with the 2010's, as you made the low speed or high speed compression firmer or softer, it would also make the other firmer/softer.

 

[Sandwich]

Will that make it more likely that it'll be covered under warranty?

 

[LOOnatic]

Will that make it more likely that it'll be covered under warranty?

They might warranty the lowers if the shop that calls can make the case. Or they might make you pay the crash replacement.
If i had a 2010 team i would buy the 2011 compression and rebound updated parts or go for the avy cart.
Craig at avy can reshim the 2010 stuff for around $100 if i recall right.

 

[skatetokil]

To be honest, I've had really good luck with SRAM customer service. Their suspension products tend to be high maintenance and they have engineering issues which can be very annoying, but you can't say they don't stand behind their equipment. They have sent me my share of free (and usually better) replacement parts when things have failed prematurely. And my 06 boxxer is still running and feels great (knock on wood). You just have to do new seals every season and keep some o rings in the toolbox...

 

[LOOnatic]

To be honest, I've had really good luck with SRAM customer service.

So true . I bought a revelation XC fork and on a trip the new fork took a dump. SRAM payed a shop in sedona to loan me a fork, sent me a new fork after , and a pair of Elixer CR carbon mag brakes with rotors for my hassle. I love to hate them i guess......

 

[Udi]

Don't think anyones mentioned it yet, but you can check for yourself if you have the updated (lower stiction) seal head.

http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/showthread.php?t=230876

In my experience there's nothing hugely wrong with either the stock rebound or compression damper (even in the 2010), the compression is valved too softly for any of the claims to have much truth. The only reason the comp adjustments would "affect each other" is because it's shimmed so lightly that you have to crank down the stack preload (HSC) for the LSC to do anything. Add a few shims and it works well enough, if you want more damping. The rebound damper works fine, IMO it doesn't need any changes.

In my experience most of the resistance/harshness people attribute to the damper actually comes from the lovely boxxer chassis stiction, and no amount of updated dampers or avy cartridges are going to fix that.

What might help is rebuilding the thing regularly, packing the seals with grease, running a little more oil than suggested in the lowers (20ml is safe in my experience for the damper or air leg, and as much as you want in the spring leg - I'd go with at least 60ml)... and a little hint I have is to try the new Fox Green oil (not red). I've noticed the boxxers to be particularly sensitive to choice of lower lube, and Fox took the time to find a fluid that lowered stiction. I suspect it might help the boxxer along too.

 

[Sandwich]

well, it's most certainly "stiction" related. Took it out for a spin the other day and it seems to have a reluctance to move initially. Thing is, I rebuilt it with judy butter and RS's own recommended oil (15wt, SRAM branded) and the suggested volume of oil (i think it's 15/40ml). I packed the seal area with grease, but it just doesn't seem to want to slide smoothly.

I'm running the red spring, half dropstop, zero LSC (for now, until I can figure this out) and a few clicks of HSC. No idea on rebound at the moment.

 

[BIGHITR]

GREAT! JUST FREAKING GREAT! I gotta hear this after everyone bashed Manitou calling it Manipoo, my Travis is awesome minus the soft spring and I go and buy Rock Shox Boxxers 2010 because everyone tells me it's a better fork. Actually JonKranked told me the 2010 was a good choice. I just wish I had known this before I bought them. But I got it off a bike shop on Ebay blowing out their left over 2010 inventory and their still in the box! TWO of them! And you mean to tell me I have to take both apart and put new cartridges in AND NEW LOWERS!!!? JESUS you gotta be kidding me!? GREAT! JUST FREAKIN GREAT! ALL I NEEDED was a FREAKIN FIRM RIDE SPRING FROM MANITOU and ALL THIS CRAP WOULD HAVE BEEN OVER!!! THANKS TO MANITOU'S POLICY OF NOT OFFERING THEM TO CUSTOMERS JUST A YEAR AND A HALF LATER, I GO BUY TWO BOXXERS AND NOW THIS!!! It never ends! I can't take my shocks to my lbs! I got them on line from the shop! NOW WHAT!?

 

[IH8Rice]

stuff

youre just now hearing about some of the issues with the 2010 Boxxers?


either way, it was jonkranked's fault, not yours.

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

seriously, i cant help by wonder how the hell some companies stay in business with such practices?

and why, the very same market, which is ridiculously discriminating for "performance improvements" support it.

 

[BIGHITR]

youre just now hearing about some of the issues with the 2010 Boxxers? Either way, it was jonkranked's fault, not yours.

Haa haa, but seriously yes I am just hearing about this!! I don't blame Jon but Jon spoke with me by email over the winter about a buddy of mine that talked about going to Whistler and the boxxer team would be better fork for Whistler than my Manitou Travis Triple because I have a soft ride on and I was worried of bottoming out all over the place. Not to mention, I can't get dick for my Manitou Travis Triple if it breaks in parts. It was a 2008 and I called Manitou like early 2009 to ask about a firm ride spring and they told me they didn't have any more. Because I've heard so much bad about manitou, and I've been on Manitou for 15 years now and never had a complaint, I don't like the idea of being left out in the cold by Manitou on parts so I bought two brand new $1,600 Rock Shox Boxxers a few weeks later this past winter and now I read this sh*t! You have NO idea how upset I am now because they're BOTH still in the box waiting to be mounted on my bikes for end of summer to do Whistler! GEEZUS you gotta be kidding me!? I gotta take TWO BRAND NEW FORKS FROM ROCKSHOX AND SEND THEM BACK FOR NEW LOWERS AND NEW INNERS? So I bought two crowns and two stantions for $3,200!!!? Needless to say I'm pretty pissed right now. Ready to put both on Ebay and unload them both and learn a lesson never to buy Rockshox ever again!

seriously, i cant help by wonder how the hell some companies stay in business with such practices?

and why, the very same market, which is ridiculously discriminating for "performance improvements" support it.

Considering Rockshox Boxxer Team's are $1,600 each, I would say so! GEESH!!! It would have been cheaper for me to have a customized firm SPRING made for my Manitou Travis Triple than to have to hear this news! Now I have to call Rockshox about the lowers and the inserts. Hell, I should just send both back in the box they're in and tell them to FIX THE DAMN PROBLEM before I ever mount them and ride 'em! I would think for what I paid, unridden, THEY SHOULD FIX THIS PROBLEM FOR ME STAT! ESPECIALLY IF THEY'VE BEEN AWARE OF THE PROBLEM!! Hell, give me my damn money back and I'll go buy twin FOX 40's if that's the case! Will keep you all posted as to how they handle this one. I can't believe I have to go through this. Everyone brags so much about Rockshox and Fox and Manitou I've never had one problem with! Other than their stupidity of their recent buy out management to not offer me parts just a year and a half out of new purchase. What a crock! This biking industry's starting to resemble the U.S. Auto Industry the way it's going. Where in the hell are the Jap companies to save us from this over priced shoddy product!? HELLO JAPAN ARE YOU LISTENING!!!? America needs great durable quality products with incredible customer service and reliability! HINT HINT!

 

[BIGHITR]

I'm going to call Rockshox on Monday about this issue. If they don't fix the issue free of charge, I'll have two brand new 2010 Boxxer Teams IN THE BOX, 200mm up for sale for a grand a piece! Trust me, after what I've been through with the crappy $600 Bontrager Wheels on my brand new Gary Fisher King Fisher 1 that went up in the first 20 minutes, and the Truvativ BB that went up in about three months, I'll unload this crap ASAP and learn another lesson from it! One thing I can NOT tolerate is high priced INFERIOR BUILT JUNK!

stay tuned...

 

[Sandwich]

Dude, do you know your forks are both bad? Lots of people are fine with theirs. Mine is likely a lube or early internals teething problem. Don't give up on them without giving them a chance first. I'm confident I can find a solution one way or another, not sure whether I'll stay on it afterwards though.

 

[IH8Rice]

you paid $1600 for a 2010 Boxxer Team?
id be pissed too if i was you

Dude, do you know your forks are both bad?

assumption is the mother of all fvck ups

 

[Commencal-guy]

Don't think anyones mentioned it yet, but you can check for yourself if you have the updated (lower stiction) seal head.

http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/showthread.php?t=230876

In my experience there's nothing hugely wrong with either the stock rebound or compression damper (even in the 2010), the compression is valved too softly for any of the claims to have much truth. The only reason the comp adjustments would "affect each other" is because it's shimmed so lightly that you have to crank down the stack preload (HSC) for the LSC to do anything. Add a few shims and it works well enough, if you want more damping. The rebound damper works fine, IMO it doesn't need any changes.

In my experience most of the resistance/harshness people attribute to the damper actually comes from the lovely boxxer chassis stiction, and no amount of updated dampers or avy cartridges are going to fix that.

What might help is rebuilding the thing regularly, packing the seals with grease, running a little more oil than suggested in the lowers (20ml is safe in my experience for the damper or air leg, and as much as you want in the spring leg - I'd go with at least 60ml)... and a little hint I have is to try the new Fox Green oil (not red). I've noticed the boxxers to be particularly sensitive to choice of lower lube, and Fox took the time to find a fluid that lowered stiction. I suspect it might help the boxxer along too.

I couldn't have agreed with you more.

 

[Sandwich]

Ok, so suggesting this has nothing to do with the damper and seal head, and that my fork still has the grease and oil I put in it last week, where do I look for stiction next?

 

[dereka15]

Rebuilds are crucial with the boxxers, i had the 2010 world cups with bad rebound cart, First off, enduro seals make a HUGE difference in stiction, then i used slickoleum grease(slickhoney) and packed the seals, next a 50/50 mixture of Sram redrum and 15wt oil for the lowers, and finnaly use a 3wt oil in the damper, and that thing should be amazing, Its just really time consuming i ride alot and was doing it about every 3-4 weeks but im really anal about stiction, it had 2 years on it before the damper took a ****, ive since moved to the new 888evo it was perfect right out of the box, and absolutley no issues in 5 months of hard riding without a single rebuild. The boxxer is an amazing fork though just too much work for me.

 

[LOOnatic]

I'm going to call Rockshox on Monday about this issue. If they don't fix the issue free of charge, I'll have two brand new 2010 Boxxer Teams IN THE BOX, 200mm up for sale for a grand a piece! Trust me, after what I've been through with the crappy $600 Bontrager Wheels on my brand new Gary Fisher King Fisher 1 that went up in the first 20 minutes, and the Truvativ BB that went up in about three months, I'll unload this crap ASAP and learn another lesson from it! One thing I can NOT tolerate is high priced INFERIOR BUILT JUNK!

stay tuned...

Stop blowing your rag. You dont even know if your forks are bad yet your reacting big time. There are tons of 2010s that had no problem.

 

[BIGHITR]

Stop blowing your rag. You dont even know if your forks are bad yet your reacting big time. There are tons of 2010s that had no problem.

I don't know if mine are affected but listening to all the problems on here I can NOT believe an american mountain bike fork company would not put out a recall for the forks if they had a damper cartridge problems and rebound stiction issues, not to mention someone mentioned the rod might be on a 5 degree angle because the lowers are inferior! Geesh, what else? Are the crowns made of tin foil?

MANITOU! ARE YOU LISTENING!!!? FIND ME MY DAMN 200mm TRAVIS FIRM RIDE SPRINGS AND I'LL DUMP ROCKSHOX FOR GOOD AND COME BACK!!!!

 

[Sandwich]

Well I pulled my lowers again, anyways, and I've got enough grease to make a bad fifties musical in the Late seventies. Full of oil, forty plus, fifteen plus, and I lubed the rebound shaft since one of the trumpwhores suggested that worked for him in the ****show thread. There's still stiction, though not as bad. Seems to be coming from either the damper or seals, as it was there regardless of dust wipers. Maybe the seals next? Hopefully the warranty will come through...

 

[BIGHITR]

Well I pulled my lowers again, anyways, and I've got enough grease to make a bad fifties musical in the Late seventies. Full of oil, forty plus, fifteen plus, and I lubed the rebound shaft since one of the trumpwhores suggested that worked for him in the ****show thread. There's still stiction, though not as bad. Seems to be coming from either the damper or seals, as it was there regardless of dust wipers. Maybe the seals next? Hopefully the warranty will come through...

Well, you can see why I'm very upset to hear all this now and why I'll be calling Rockshox to get their take on this issue. I know what they're going to say. "We won't fix it unless there's a problem." That's not what I want to hear. Because HERE'S my problem!

They're still in the box! And if they won't fix the problem until there's a problem, once I mount them and ride them I won't get as much for them as I would new in the box so I'll have a choice to either unload them on Ebay to someone else or risk them running out of warranty because I bought them a few months ago and the warranty will probably run out before they'll break and then they'll use that as an excuse to not cover them. Here we go again. Since 2008, all new King Fisher bike, "all new parts"... since, a new wheelset, a new crankset, new Hayes brakes, a new bb, new tires, hell, I'm blowing good hard earned money on this stuff and all I'm getting is crappy quality junk and wind up to unloading it all for a loss on ebay. This is getting ridiculous! Only thing I need to replace next is the frame, and rear shock and I've bought a whole new bike! GEESH! I've got such bad luck.

Stay tuned. I may have to brand spanking new Boxxers to sell!

 

[Udi]

Well I pulled my lowers again, anyways, and I've got enough grease to make a bad fifties musical in the Late seventies. Full of oil, forty plus, fifteen plus, and I lubed the rebound shaft since one of the trumpwhores suggested that worked for him in the ****show thread. There's still stiction, though not as bad. Seems to be coming from either the damper or seals, as it was there regardless of dust wipers. Maybe the seals next? Hopefully the warranty will come through...

Did you check if you have the updated seal head (groove on base)? The old version of this had a lot of stiction (I distinctly remember one of the Trumpores abusing people for not breaking in their fork, then rockshox went ahead and updated the part because it was actually too tight).

I know you just rebuilt it, but it's pretty easy to narrow down the cause of stiction.

- Back off all damping and take out spring or depressurise air spring, see if both legs are sticky or just one (cycling stanchions individually in lower).

- Remove stanchions from lower and cycle damper and air spring individually in hand (or carefully against ground) to see if stiction is from one of these. Obviously if it's a team then the spring side should be fine.

- Remove seals and wipers from lowers, and slide a stanchion in, preferably with no damper/spring rode to interfere, on a coil fork taking the coil out would do the trick. You can usually feel if there's stiction at this point, and this is usually the culprit in my experience.

I've found (or strongly suspect) some oils actually swell the teflon bushing surface slightly, which makes for instant stiction. If you've used the Rockshox stuff since the fork was new then this probably isn't the case, but then again who's to say they've even tested for something like that...

In any case, if the bushings are tight then your choices are either warranty (if you are able to) and failing that, some wet and dry sandpaper on the end of a broomstick. Sounds ridiculous but I've found it works quite well, obviously care needs to be exercised.

 

[Sandwich]

Well I'm not 100% that the correct oil was used all the time, but I suppose that's a possibility.

There seemed to be some stiction in the rebound seal head, especially if the shaft was moved at an angle. There seemed to be a delay or at least a very odd sensation when moving the shaft up to back down. I don't know if it's supposed to feel this way or not. It is the updated seal head with the groove.

I'll give the spring side a slide when I get home. That should be easy and not require yet another rebuild. I did notice that the syringe I used to measure out oil has a massive amount of swelling on the rubber plunger. I'd wager that has something to do with it. If it's not the spring side, with seals and wipers in it, then I think it's safe to assume it's the damper. Any idea on whether it's possible to remove the oil seal with the stanchion still in it? I'd rather not rebuild the fork yet again... I suppose if the spring side is sticky, it's either the seal or the bushings.

The stiction is most prevalent leaning on the handlebars. It feels like the bushings are binding about halfway up and the fork doesn't want to react. Not sure if this realistically translates to trail feel but I suspect it's similar.

I went back through that awful boxxer thread looking for a solution or general consensus but all I found was an absolutely appalling response by the brothers trumpore as well as rufus. They kept blaming the end user and then there ended up being a pretty large scale quiet recall of the rebound head and top out spring, two things they blamed very specifically on the user. Lost a large amount of respect for all three right there....and still can't find a solution LOL....

 

[IH8Rice]

whining

heres an idea. mount the forks to see if theres actually a problem before more sand gets in your vagina.
if youre upset about "blowing good hard earned money" on parts, why the hell did you buy two identical forks? and if RS says they wont fix it unless theres a issue, then good for them. why should they fix something that probably doesnt need to be fixed?

 

[Sandwich]

also it looks like your forks are not early 2010s, but 2011s or whatever post-fix. From my understanding, all the early issues are ironed out.