My 888 is leaking from the center of the fork leg!!!

binary visions · Jun 21, 2004

Not the first time I've heard someone post something like this about the 888s.. Lowers must be so thin, they're easy to puncture.

crashnscar · Jun 21, 2004

So thats how they got it relatively light weight with still a sick feeling

SprungShoulders · Jun 21, 2004

Hmmm...the list with those running into this problem seems to be growing. I have three friends that have 888's and, though none have had this problem yet, it'll be interesting to see if it develops as the season progresses and more abuse is heaped upon the fork(s).

I'm curious if it's an actual design flaw, or simply a matter of sloppy specs on the wall thickness of the lowers. Perhaps even bad alloy process. Or a combination of all three?

I think I'll be keeping my Shiver for a while.

Acadian · Jun 21, 2004

hey...at least Marz is taking care of you (and prob)! so that's a good start! :thumb:

go-ride.com · Jun 21, 2004

I've seen that happen to one other 888 and Marz. warranteed it no questions. From what I could tell a drop of epoxy would have fixed the problem, but they still replaced the complete lowers. So far out of the nearly 40 888s we've sold that is the only problem we have had. That's pretty d@mn good.

bagtagley · Jun 21, 2004

Yep, same problem here. My oil level was normal, and I hadn't done anything over 6-7 feet. Marzocchi took care of it quickly w/ no questions, so I got no complaints.

http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/showthread.php?t=82760

Acadian · Jun 21, 2004

crashing_sux said:
It's cost me a couple days of riding but the Zoke tech said he'd replace the lowers Wednesday and give me a custom tune so it looks like I may come out ahead in the end. I'll let you guys know if the fork feels significantly better after they work on it.

custom tune? :think:

wonder what "extra" work they do?

punkassean · Jun 21, 2004

prolly some of the "works" treatment...polishing bushings or whatever that 500pg thread was about a while ago.

bigkonarider · Jun 21, 2004

if you want some honest advice..
GET A CLAPPED OUT OR NICE MONSTER-T BEFORE ANY OTHER WEIGHT SAVING FORK..
they are extremely heavy--but are beefy & RELIABLE as hell !!
They are worth the weight penalty...
my .02 :nope:

Brian HCM#1 · Jun 21, 2004

It must be a weakness in the casting itself.

red223 · Jun 22, 2004

**** that would be scary....

thats like the carbon on my x-works leaking :dead:

JRB · Jun 22, 2004

I really like Marz stuff, but their castings leave a good deal to be desired. I think the dropouts on my 02 marathon are pretty crude.

Westy · Jun 22, 2004

There is a chance of porosity when making anything out of a casting, whether it is an engine block or fork lower. The casting can be pressure tested or even x-rayed to detect such defects but that would significantly increase cost.

bizutch · Jun 22, 2004

Porosity is a manufacturing term. What it means is simple....bubbles of air in the metal casting. Any number of things can contribute to it and I can vouch for Marzocchi in saying it is something that happens to the BEST companies all the time. I've worked in manufacturing for BMW, John Deere and CAT turbo.

I'm guessing that Marzocchi has the castings outsourced to a specialty shop that does castings for any number of big companies(maybe even one I'm familiar with). I seriously doubt they have the facilities or specialized equipment to do their own. Porosity makes aluminum resemble a sponge...it is really hard to spot too because it can be lying underneath the surface of the metal. Then when the metal is stressed enough, the thin covering of metal of the "pores" can pop off exposing the hole. That's when your company gets made to look bad by whoever you're trying to sell your goods to. The porosity wasn't caused by your assembly, but by the casting company.

Brian P....don't answer this one....I got it handled....... AHHHHHH HHHHHAAAA!!! BWWWAAHHH !!!!! HAAAHHHH!!!!

Slugman · Jun 22, 2004

Westy said:
There is a chance of porosity when making anything out of a casting, whether it is an engine block or fork lower. The casting can be pressure tested or even x-rayed to detect such defects but that would significantly increase cost.

Uh 'zyglo' anyone... it's a cheap solution my old company used to spot defects on cast hip and knee replacements. It's a soluion that glows in black light - it's very good at getting into the smallest of spaces and then really showing up well.

And any good casting house will be able to reduce the porosity once they learn its a problem...

JRB · Jun 22, 2004

Bad castings are bad whether you did it or bought it. Not that Marz has a huge problem. Example - I had a 96 Powerstroke with a high pressure water leak. After several oil coolers and block heaters, the dealership resigned to calling Ford. Turns out I had 1 of 10,000 motors with a casting flaw. International recalled them and then did the $1800 repair after Ford put it in my truck anyway. In this case, Ford was the asshole. Buying cheap products and continuing to use them once an issue is known is poor manufacturing. On that note, it would take tons of specialized tools to test fork lowers.

Brian Peterson · Jun 22, 2004

bizutch said:
Porosity is a manufacturing term. What it means is simple....bubbles of air in the metal casting. Any number of things can contribute to it and I can vouch for Marzocchi in saying it is something that happens to the BEST companies all the time. I've worked in manufacturing for BMW, John Deere and CAT turbo.

I'm guessing that Marzocchi has the castings outsourced to a specialty shop that does castings for any number of big companies(maybe even one I'm familiar with). I seriously doubt they have the facilities or specialized equipment to do their own. Porosity makes aluminum resemble a sponge...it is really hard to spot too because it can be lying underneath the surface of the metal. Then when the metal is stressed enough, the thin covering of metal of the "pores" can pop off exposing the hole. That's when your company gets made to look bad by whoever you're trying to sell your goods to. The porosity wasn't caused by your assembly, but by the casting company.

Brian P....don't answer this one....I got it handled....... AHHHHHH HHHHHAAAA!!! BWWWAAHHH !!!!! HAAAHHHH!!!!

Actually, Marzocchi does the castings in house in Italy.... While a unnoticed casting flaw is always a possibility, they have been at best a rare occurance... Ronnie and Tom will be up there by tomorrow... Somebody's fork will get dialed for sure....

Brian

Repack · Jun 22, 2004

crashing_sux said:
I'm not surprised that with all of that internal pressure the oil had to go somewhere, I just would have expected it to push through a seal instead of the fork leg.

Son, you ride a Bomber, not a Rockshox

bizutch · Jun 22, 2004

Brian Peterson said:
Actually, Marzocchi does the castings in house in Italy.... While a unnoticed casting flaw is always a possibility, they have been at best a rare occurance... Ronnie and Tom will be up there by tomorrow... Somebody's fork will get dialed for sure....

Brian

WOW, that's a rarity in mass production. Every company I worked for outsourced any sort of aluminum processing. I had no idea you guys had that capability. But then again, that would explain the detail Zokes forks have compared to the competition.

Where I worked, it was a battle to get good castings with the volume we did. The company we outsourced to pumped out so many, so fast and we assembled so many so rapidly, that if a batch had porosity, we would have to practically shut down production and have the company come in and personally inspect every single piece we had. We were ISO and QS certified..it was brutal.

Thanks Brian. I was "guesstimating" i.e. ....talking out of my ass. :drool:

bizutch · Jun 22, 2004

on a separate note, we did BIG DIESEL TURBOS.

If a intake housing had porosity....it would deafen you during testing. Imagine a 15,000 rpm pressurized whistle the size of a basketball!!!

HTFR · Jun 22, 2004

bizutch said:
on a separate note, we did BIG DIESEL TURBOS.

If a intake housing had porosity....it would deafen you during testing. Imagine a 15,000 rpm pressurized whistle the size of a basketball!!!

dude thats rough!

see, this is why cnc lowers are needed!!! :eviltongu

WestCoastHucker · Jun 22, 2004

i had a Z1 that had the same issue. it was warrantied without question...

punkassean · Jun 22, 2004

red223 said:
**** that would be scary....

thats like the carbon on my x-works leaking

you just wanted to say MY X-WORKS so all of us Sherman Slider+ (read ghetto X-Works) owners would be jealous...

ol_cletus · Jun 23, 2004

I took a slow fall (walking speed) yesterday. Dropped my bike on a rock and it sprung a leak. The rebound oil started pouring out on the rebound stroke. Talked to Marzocchi today. I am not sure if they are going to warranty them or not. They said that they had only heard of one case of this so far. This is bull****. The fork should not have punctured at this speed. This is too bad because this may be the best fork I have ever ridden.

Jm_ · Jun 23, 2004

ol_cletus said:
I took a slow fall (walking speed) yesterday. Dropped my bike on a rock and it sprung a leak. The rebound oil started pouring out on the rebound stroke. Talked to Marzocchi today. I am not sure if they are going to warranty them or not. They said that they had only heard of one case of this so far. This is bull****. The fork should not have punctured at this speed. This is too bad because this may be the best fork I have ever ridden.

Well, it is only 7.something lbs, that's real light for a marzocchi. If you get it replaced/warrentied, I'd suggest finding some pvc to wrap around the stanchions maybe for about 100-120°. Lexan sheets can be heated and warped around the fork legs as well. I don't drop my bike on rocks very often, but there's a good chance this could puncture a lot of forks.

I've heard about this happening on quite a few boxxers, so it's not unheard of.

Acadian · Jun 23, 2004

Jm_ said:
I've heard about this happening on quite a few boxxers, so it's not unheard of.

Si...

I bent my lowers at the Idaho Nationals last year. Didnt puncture, but restricted travel.

Bought new lowers, and they are already looking like a punching bag!

Jeremy R · Jun 23, 2004

I remember when Tyler busted a hole through his boxxer the size of a quarter. He nailed a rock super hard and something had to give.
He went home, and showed up a couple hours later with new oil, and
fixed the hole with JB weld. He proceeded to ride it like that all year,
just using more JB weld when needed.

Jm_ · Jun 23, 2004

Acadian said:
Si...

I bent my lowers at the Idaho Nationals last year. Didnt puncture, but restricted travel.

Bought new lowers, and they are already looking like a punching bag!

im sure it's happened on other forks too. One case was just because a rock got "kicked up" and hit (punctured) the lowers.

Jm_ · Jun 23, 2004

Jeremy R said:
I remember when Tyler busted a hole through his boxxer the size of a quarter. He nailed a rock super hard and something had to give.
He went home, and showed up a couple hours later with new oil, and
fixed the hole with JB weld. He proceeded to ride it like that all year,
just using more JB weld when needed.

lol...i guess you could always bondo it and then sand it down...hehe...

Repack · Jun 23, 2004

Jm_ said:
.....

I've heard about this happening on quite a few boxxers, so it's not unheard of.

I can say from experience that it takes a very substantial hit to DENT a Boxxer, but even then a leak is not a given. My brother and I have each dented a Boxxer casting so bad that the fork would not compress passed the impact point, but no oil came out. In each case, the impact 'crater' was ~the size of a quarter (American, not Canadian currency).

Roasted · Jun 24, 2004

crashing_sux said:
Somebodies fork will get dialed for sure, but who's??? Certainly not mine.

When I talked to the techs on Monday they said come back Wednesday and they would fix my fork up. I asked what time and they said anytime, they'd be there all day so I told them I would show up when the lifts open at 10.

10am rolls around today and I show up at the Marzocchi camp (isn't that what is expected when you say you'll be someplace?) and nobody is there. Well, not exactly nobody, there was me and at least one other guy there who had the exact same problem I had but in the left leg. They had told him to show up today and they'd fix his fork as well. By 1pm he got tired of waiting around and left but since I had allready taken the day off of work intending to get my fork fixed and ride the rest of the day I kept hanging out all day until finally at 6pm Ronnie and a couple of other guys showed up.

I should have seen this coming, of course they had no idea what was going on, said that nobody was supposed to be working today and that they didn't even have any parts yet, and that they were planning on working on a bunch of forks tomorrow, but not mine.

Why the hell is is to so hard for some people to just do what they say they are going to do? It's not like I pressured them to get it done anytime soon, they just threw out Wednesday as the date they would fix my fork and I said OK. Same thing they did to the other guy. I wonder if this happened to anyone else today? I only know about the one other guy because he came up to me and started talking to me about my bike and when I told him why I wasn't riding he said that he was in the same boat.

It completely blew my day of riding as well since the fork is leaking oil directly onto my rotor and pads so my front brake is useless. I managed to hit Dirt Merchant and A-line but real trails with any steep sections were out since I was relying on my rear brake to slow me down.

This just blows me away, there were three techs there on Monday who told me and at least one other person to come by Wednesday. How hard would it have been for even one of them to be there? Or to even put a note on the door saying sorry, we lied to you and decided to go riding instead? At least then we wouldn't have wasted hours waiting around.

:mumble:

That sucks to hear. Did it eventually get worked out or do you have another time to get it repaired? I wish I had know I was up the mountain in the afternoon, would have come by and said hi ...

Hope it gets worked out for ya.

Slugman · Jun 24, 2004

Repack said:
I can say from experience that it takes a very substantial hit to DENT a Boxxer, but even then a leak is not a given.

What year and model... b/c mine dented like an empty beer can!!!

Roasted · Jun 24, 2004

crashing_sux said:
Nothing has been worked out yet. One of the techs (Ronnie) told me to bring it by tomorrow and he would put it at the end of the line of about 50 forks that need to be worked on (gee, thanks) but he doesn't think they'll be able to get to it while they are up here and said he'd probably have to mail it off to their service center.

Let's hope for better luck (like employees acting professionally) tomorrow.

That sucks really bad. That could leave you without a ride for a bike. You would think they could just get some new lowers for you (yes I know everyone, I really don't know much about production levels). It would be interesting to know if the 50 forks in front of yours had similar issues.

Sounds like the techs who made the promises were talking out their asses. Should have got their names in the first place...

I forget, is the enduro is still up and running? At least you aren't off the mountain completely...if it is still running.

My 888 is leaking from the center of the fork leg!!!

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