[Andyman_1970]

The situation:

I have an ’04 Blur (XL) with an early ’04 Fox Float 100RL fork. I weigh 155lbs, and add another about 10-15 lbs with Camelback and stuff.

I have noticed that on my fork I am not getting my full travel, so I lowered the psi, but this increases my sag too much (at or above 25mm). I noticed pictures of me racing on this bike that even when I was not going through technical terrain, the fork seemed very “settled” into a lot of it’s travel. This is with the rebound set to full fast.

My question is (the first of a few): even though I may be using all my travel (zip tie indication), because of my excessive sag, effectively I’m only getting about 80mm or less of actual available travel when I’m on the trail. Does this sound right? I don’t notice my fork bottoming out, but I do notice that it doesn’t seem as plush as it should.

Possible solutions:

Is there a combination of air pressure and rebound that will yield all of or more travel than I am currently getting?

Could the 7wt. fork oil be too heavy and I need to go to a lighter (2.5 wt.) oil to get all the travel at the “normal” sag settings?

Possible alternatives:

Assuming for some reason on Fox forks because of my weight or whatever, I need to run more sag than normal to achieve the full travel, I was considering putting a Talas RL on the Blur. The thinking is: I could set the travel to more than 100mm (110 -115) and a low enough air pressure to get full travel, the additional travel would eat up the sag and leave me with effectively 100mm or “real” travel (which is what I am aiming for).

Does this make sense?

 

[oldfart]

With a 100mm travel you should have about 20-30mm sag depending on how you like the fork to feel. But I know what you're feeling. I think you should remove a little oil from the damper. Try taking off the damper top cap actualy, it remains attached to the damper shaft but you can pull it up enough to insert a hose on the end of a graduated syringe. Suck out 5cc to start and see how she feels.

My buddy had the same issue, not able to get full travel until he took out some oil.

You also need to gently lift the wipers up fairly often to clean and relube the foam and wiper. I'd use redrum to lube it all up every couple weeks of everyday riding. Especially if its dusty. Makes the seals sticky. All forks need this TLC now and again.

 

[Andyman_1970]

Cool!

You're the second person to suggest that, I'll try it.

Thanks for the help.

 

[fldunit]

Another trick I learned from a Fox tech guy was to store the bike up-side-down occasionally to move a little extra oil up into the wiper area between servicing. And remember that the Float series uses air as a spring so the spring rate gets progressively stiffer as it is collapsed (since you are compressing air in a metal can) where coil spring forks are linear (spring's rate is constant extended or collapsed). To that end, the Float is probably the plushest of the air forks available but it is still an air shocked fork and designed to be a light, race ready fork to compete with other offerings. Try the tuning tips and let us know what you think but for a plusher but slightly heavier fork...go coil.

 

[Kornphlake]

I wouldn't endorse storing the bike upside down, maybe turn it upside down for 10 minutes or so but not for any extended period of time or all the oil will run past the seals over time. I honestly never had any trouble with the bushings on my fox forx not getting oil, there was always a thin film of oil on the stantions, at times(like after riding porc rim in moab) there would be a trickle of oil running down the lower where so much oil had pushed past the wipers from constant cycling.