I'm not trying to bag on anyone who's done this or is interested in doing this mod, I love to tinker too. But I'm curious...Is the set up of the 5th really that difficult that it's less of a hassle to disassemble 2 shocks, cannibalize them into one and rebuild?
PVC pipe? How do you plan on reducing the travel? I'm not sure PVC pipe will do the trick....it may not be strong enough to withstand top out forces. Usually travel is reduced by machining the shaft down to the correct length, and re-tapping threads as necessary. Can you draw up in MS paint what you plan on doing? I'm interested.i am waiting for a donor metal as we speak. i would like to reduce the travel and stroke of the shox too, anyone know of a good material to do that? i was thinking of machining a nice teflon spacer to put under the main piston. but thats a bit too much work, might just go with a pvc pipe cut to length.
Hmmm. Looks like a good idea, but if I were you, I really would be considering something that isn't going to shatter, such as nylon. Think about the forces put on that spacer every time you launch a jump, and the unweighted wheel, extended by both the spring and gravity. I'd make it nice and beefy, out of a softer polymer, so that you don't have to re-bleed when it breaks. Sweet idea though! Might play with it myself
spacer is in red. as long as you dont use huge amount of preload on the spring i think the pvc pipe will hold up. i am just going to use a 5th as a project shox on my bike. i will use the dhx for races.
yea, machining a teflon spacer would be nice. but in the true spirit of ghetto-ness i am still going to think about something else tho. machining involves money that i dont have. oh well, i'll pop by the machine shop and see if they have any scrap nylon of teflon.
i dont see any reason to shorten the shaft. although this will mess up the position sensitivity of the shox, adjusting the IFP depth would fix that though.
oooo, just had an idea. maybe i could cut up an old e13 bash. but that has problems with cracking when drilled. anyone have any ideas for a spacer?
My 5th element air and coil didn't have any compression shims either, I had once mistaken the little shims sitting in a separate perch above the rebound shims as compression shims, but they only operate during the low speed rebound stages as you have indicated (they are being held by the circlip).tips for you guys wanting to take your own shox apart, the IFP doesn't have a bleed valve like fox, so you need to force it out with pressure. i just filled the main body with water, closed it up, compressed the shaft. and repeated untill it was forced out. the IFP depth for a 8.75x2.75 model is 48mm to the middle of the IFP. there is no need to take out the check valves on the piggy back or the LSC and HSC adjusters, but i wanted to get to know the shox better.
unlike what i have heard, there are no compression shims at all. anyone opened up a 5th with compression shims? i dont think i would need a donor shox at all, plans for it now is just a spacer to replace the SPV valve and a shim to act as a check valve in place of the SPV valve, change the oil to a lighter weight, the oil that came in the shox was sikolene RSF 7.5wt, changing it to 5wt to speed up the reb, also taking one of the HSR shim out. and of course some sort of spacer to reduce the travel.
edit: just a side note, but for those that actually wondered what RSF oil tastes like, its actually taste like grape, bit ironic since its purple color. i wonder if 10wt will tastes like strawberry? since its red.
What are those and where did you get them?
just to drill them out.
edit, i hope PVC doesn't react adversely with shox oil :0
the 'blown rebound' is only the control valve stuck down. if you take it apart and replace the o rings on the control valve it would work again.what if i have a couple 5th elements here that have blown rebound. anyway i can fix them?
Awesome! Thank you for those.btw guys. Just wanted to give you some extra images of this proceedure.
http://happymtb.org/forum/read.php/1/643861
All in swedish but still the pictures tell alot.
It looks like the last picture is telling you not to use any shims on the compression side of the piston, bad idea if so!btw guys. Just wanted to give you some extra images of this proceedure.
http://happymtb.org/forum/read.php/1/643861
All in swedish but still the pictures tell alot.
I took apart the SPV valve in my swinger, and I used the inner part of it as a spacer, as shown in your last picturebtw guys. Just wanted to give you some extra images of this proceedure.
http://happymtb.org/forum/read.php/1/643861
All in swedish but still the pictures tell alot.
My setup looks like this now:To the guy with no rebound - you HAVE to have a couple of compression shims to act as a one way valve, to force oil back through the variable needle rebound valve. If you've got those in, then yeah, 2.5wt is your problem. I have 5wt in my shock, and can't feel resistance until the last two turns of the rebound adjuster, where it has a nice range. I think you'd even be safe with 7.5wt oil!
The Happymtb link does not work.
You need a shim or two on the piston side where the SPV valve was. I think that is where you are pointing to but you drew so much red, that I cannot see what is under there.
The shims act like a one way flap valve. WIthout any shims on that side, the oil can bypass the rebound shims and go right through the piston.
All of the info you need is on the manitou seb site (as well here on this site in several threads). They have complete tear down and rebuild instructions for the manitou shocks. Since manitou licensed the tech from Fifth, internally and functionally they are ~ the same.Can anyone post the translated version of the happymtb page? i've tried the translater thing and cant seem to get it to work. Thanks