Am I misreading the Fox manual, or does the TALAS fork require no maintenance other than keeping the stanchions clean and sending it in once every 18 months?
Thanks!
Thanks!
TALAS Maintenance
- Thread starter quadricolour
- Start date
Depends who you talk to and how you read the manual. The way I read it, "Fox Forx" require that you periodically lift the wiper and make sure the foam bit is saturated with oil. According to one fellow I e-mail corresponded with at Fox, your not supposed to lift the wiper on the TALAS side. He says that lets air out. I say that's bullsh!t. No way a wiper will hold any real pressure for any amount of time and besides, the TALAS mechanism is encased on its own inside the left leg. The oil in there lubes the bushings only. But here's a question. If you keep adding a little oil to the foam ring say once or twice a month after 6 months do you have too much oil in there? Certainly some oil is lost on the stanchions as the fork cycles through its travel while riding, but is there a net gain and will that result in decreased travel because the air space is smaller??
Thanks for the input. I suppose I will play it safe and leave it alone... Maybe I will give Fox a call.
call Fox and ask for jason rawhles, he used to be my roomate and he knows all the tech info.
Not quite right. There isn't anything you can do to the Totally Adjustable Linear Air Spring (TALAS) itself but you will still need to do maintenance like change the oil, clean the foam rings, etc. You can drop the legs, drain the oil, do anything you want to the damping side, you just can't do anything under the topcap on the TALAS side.
That's my take on it too. I just did that, chainged oil both sides, dropped the sliders off and cleaned out the insides well. But even after I removed the damper and pumped it until the oil quit comming out and added 10cc's less than the 160cc called for I had too much oil. I reassebled, let out all the air and compressed the fork and the wiperr on the damper side popped up and barfed oil, so I sucked out another 10cc with a syringe with a hose stuck on one end and it still does not get full travel.
But I did this about 5 or 6 months ago and asked Fox about it. One guy there said you often don't or can't get all the old oil out of the damper so add less new oil. The other fellow said you can't take the talas side apart at all. I told him I didn't. He said you can't even lift the wiper as that lets out some vacuum. I call bs on that. He even said the manual tells you not to do that. More bs. I think that fellow was Joey Avila. maybe I'm wrong but I can't see a simple wiper, no matter how well it works holding any pressure, positive or negative for 18 months especially if the bike is ridden.
But I did this about 5 or 6 months ago and asked Fox about it. One guy there said you often don't or can't get all the old oil out of the damper so add less new oil. The other fellow said you can't take the talas side apart at all. I told him I didn't. He said you can't even lift the wiper as that lets out some vacuum. I call bs on that. He even said the manual tells you not to do that. More bs. I think that fellow was Joey Avila. maybe I'm wrong but I can't see a simple wiper, no matter how well it works holding any pressure, positive or negative for 18 months especially if the bike is ridden.