coil spring fork is heavy

"Yup" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Hi,
I bought a bike the other week for getting to and from work, and
taking trips round the forest - but nothing too serious. The bike came
with an SR-Suntour XCP-75LO fork, which is coil spring with lock-out
and apparently 80mm of travel. However, I don't get anything like that
much travel, and the preload doesn't help to fix the sag (which is
minimal). While riding, the suspension moves very little, even when
going down a two step drop. Small bumps don't get absorbed.

Before anyone tells me to buy another brand fork, don't bother as I'm
not going to spend any more money - I usually do city riding anyway
and the bike was cheap.

What I wanted to ask was whether something could be done to improve
the fork by making some adjustment. When I lean into the fork, it
feels as if I'm pushing against compressed air. This puzzles me
because it is a coil spring - is this normal?. There are two vertical
"fixing bolts" (according to the manual) which are at the bottom. I've
not tried to unscrew them to let air freely flow in and out (which
could possibly solve the compressed air problem). Is this safe - or is
a whole bunch of oil going to pour out the bottom?

Anyone have experience with this type of thing?

Any help would be appreciated!

Ride 100 miles and see if the fork loosens up a bit.

--
DTW .../\.../\.../\...

I've spent most of my money on mountain biking and windsurfing.
The rest, I've just wasted.

(Yup) said:

Hi,

Hi back

Quoted message said:

Any help would be appreciated!

rigid.

Bill

The First law, Inertia: Unless acted upon by an outside force,
a body at rest tends to stay at rest,
and a body in motion tends to stay in motion.
Sir Isaac Newton

If you like to tinker take the fork apart. Lay out all the parts as they
come apart in a linear fashion. Make sure you catch all the oil so you can
see how much you need to put back in.

Clean lube and grease it. Also as someone else mentioned ride it for about
100 miles because the bushings may need to break in.

I wouldn't be surprised if the internals arent tourqed and setup to spec.

Yup says...

Quoted message said:

What I wanted to ask was whether something could be done to improve
the fork by making some adjustment. When I lean into the fork, it
feels as if I'm pushing against compressed air. This puzzles me
because it is a coil spring - is this normal?. There are two vertical
"fixing bolts" (according to the manual) which are at the bottom. I've
not tried to unscrew them to let air freely flow in and out (which
could possibly solve the compressed air problem). Is this safe - or is
a whole bunch of oil going to pour out the bottom?

Anyone have experience with this type of thing?

Any help would be appreciated!

What you may be experiencing is compression damping. There may be an
adjustment for it, but probably not. OTOH, I have to wonder if you
aren't just mistaking the action of the spring for compressed air. The
only obvious difference you may see is that air is more progressive,
meaning that the spring rate increases rapidly as the air is compressed.
There is certainly going to be some rebound damping. Remember a shock
absorber is not a pogo stick, at least decent ones aren't. It isn't
going to bounce freely in both directions. I wouldn't advise unscrewing
the bolts unless you have a complete repair manual handy. Yes, oil will
pour out the bottom, but the problem may in fact be that there is too
much oil in the forks.

You may also consider changing the oil for a lighter weight oil. If there
indeed is nothing wrong with the fork.

regards
JG
www.jgerber.com/longmore2004.htm

"Super Slinky" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Yup says...

Quoted message said:

What I wanted to ask was whether something could be done to improve
the fork by making some adjustment. When I lean into the fork, it
feels as if I'm pushing against compressed air. This puzzles me
because it is a coil spring - is this normal?. There are two vertical
"fixing bolts" (according to the manual) which are at the bottom. I've
not tried to unscrew them to let air freely flow in and out (which
could possibly solve the compressed air problem). Is this safe - or is
a whole bunch of oil going to pour out the bottom?

Anyone have experience with this type of thing?

Any help would be appreciated!

What you may be experiencing is compression damping. There may be an
adjustment for it, but probably not. OTOH, I have to wonder if you
aren't just mistaking the action of the spring for compressed air. The
only obvious difference you may see is that air is more progressive,
meaning that the spring rate increases rapidly as the air is compressed.
There is certainly going to be some rebound damping. Remember a shock
absorber is not a pogo stick, at least decent ones aren't. It isn't
going to bounce freely in both directions. I wouldn't advise unscrewing
the bolts unless you have a complete repair manual handy. Yes, oil will
pour out the bottom, but the problem may in fact be that there is too
much oil in the forks.

"jgerber.com" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

You may also consider changing the oil for a lighter weight oil. If there
indeed is nothing wrong with the fork.

regards
JG

Ya that would decrease the dampnening.

Quoted message said:

Ya that would decrease the dampnening.

Damping 🙂 Or are we getting moist? :-)

J

Coyoteboy said:

Quoted message said:

Ya that would decrease the dampnening.

Damping 🙂 Or are we getting moist? :-)

J

Not this again!
--
Slacker

Slacker said:

Coyoteboy said:

Quoted message said:

Ya that would decrease the dampnening.

Damping 🙂 Or are we getting moist? :-)

J

Not this again!

You sound pissened off!

Quoted message said:

Slacker said:

Not this again!

Yup, thats what I thought when i saw the poor english too :-)

J

Coyoteboy said:

Quoted message said:

Slacker said:

Not this again!

Yup, thats what I thought when i saw the poor english too :-)

J

Hey, we may be poor, but we aint no english.

--
Slacker

Quoted message said:

Hey, we may be poor, but we aint no english.

--
Slacker

🙂 hehe, good answer.

J