Ask the experts

[joetron]

Awesome to hear, WRG!
Joe, do you (or anyone) know how one ‘aligns’ the lowers?

You can get an idea of alignment by sticking a hub in the dropouts with the lowers off the CSU. Might be surprised by what you find. Literally tweak/bend them with brute strength. It helps to have worked on thousands of forks over the years(Anthony, not me).


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[rideit]

Interesting. I have certainly come across many misaligned forks, but didn’t know you could tweak them back without getting the manufacturer involved. Cool to know.

[Lvovsky]

I'm pretty happy with the "BW" branded one on my road bike. It was cheap and within 10g of the light ones for 4x the price.

I can send you a 100mm Cannondale branded one for the cost of shipping.

Thank you but I may be set for now. There is a community bike shop in town that had 90mm stem for free and REI had a 100mm for not a lot of money.

REI stem (Dimension brand) was 1.5mm to short on the steering tube side (is the proper name for that part of the stem?) and I don’t have any extra spacers to get rid of the play.

90mm freebie fit like a charm.

[mmmm...pow!]

Diaz is some sort of magician. I've had a runt in a couple different forks for a while, and have been really happy with that. When it was time to do a seasonal service on my X2, a couple of you guys steered me away from doing it myself due to it apparently being a PITA. So I sent it to Diaz instead of Fox, mostly out of curiosity and the fact that the cost wasn't that much more. I didn't have any complaints about the X2, but felt like maybe it could somehow be better. Holy shit is it better! No idea what he did to it, but threw it on the bike as is and it's been sooo smooth. I would love to get the fork done now, just to see what he can do with that, but don't want to be without it for a few weeks during bike season, so maybe next winter. But anyone thinking about an upgrade to the bike, especially if you normally have someone else work on your suspension, highly recommend sending it to Diaz.

[Andeh]

The Zeb I bought off Joetron was also worked on Diaz, and is also pretty awesome. The breakaway force compared to my other one is definitely better. I probably *should* send the #2 Zeb in to him when it's due for service, but since it's on an ebike, the extra weight makes up for its imperfections to an extent.

[SchralphMacchio]

I like keeping a backup OE shock around to prevent downtime, but have never considered doing the same with the fork … that said I also have a backup bike which basically obviates the need for backup shock and fork …

[Eluder]

All this bushing honing and fork alignment got me tinkering. I wasn't getting full travel on the ZEB, so while pulling a token I gave the fork a cyle without the top cap on, low and behold, it tightened up right where the travel stopped. Now I have to buy some tools...

[HankScorpio]

After 4 seasons on my Hightower, I'm starting to shop for a new frame for next year. At $3500-$4000, I'm officially priced out of most dentist level, carbon frames. I'm giving the Privateer 141 a hard look. Anyone have experience with these rigs?

I'm damn near 100% sold on it.

https://us.privateerbikes.com/collections/privateer-141

[Falcon3]

All this bushing honing and fork alignment got me tinkering. I wasn't getting full travel on the ZEB, so while pulling a token I gave the fork a cyle without the top cap on, low and behold, it tightened up right where the travel stopped. Now I have to buy some tools...

Shit. I have zero tokens and still not using 20mm of travel even open HSC and low-ish pressure (200lbs geared up should bottom this fork out on huck to flats). Guessing I may have the same issue. Next time I have the bike in the stand I'll check the end travel. Seems like this would be a perfect warranty issue. Selling a 170 fork that only uses 150 of its travel because it's misaligned.

[Andeh]

Shit. I have zero tokens and still not using 20mm of travel even open HSC and low-ish pressure (200lbs geared up should bottom this fork out on huck to flats). Guessing I may have the same issue. Next time I have the bike in the stand I'll check the end travel. Seems like this would be a perfect warranty issue. Selling a 170 fork that only uses 150 of its travel because it's misaligned.

It's most likely bushings being too tight. I had same issue when I got my EXT Era and spent months trying to figure out why I couldn't tune it to use more than 60% travel. Sent it in, and they found one of the lower bushings was tight.

[Jtlange]

I just bought the burnishing tool and its a night and day difference just burnishing them and making sure they are round. I can't imagine what it would be like to get the legs aligned.

[Whiteroom_Guardian]

Had another ride on the new fork this AM. Just crazy how well it works.

[toast2266]

Here's a question for you guys: what's an acceptable tolerance for variations in disc brake rotor thickness?

Just got some Hayes A4's with hayes rotors (see rant thread re: 203mm rotors). The brakes feel great, but I'm getting a minor pulsing out of the front brake. Not just pulsing in terms of power delivery, but an actual physical movement of the lever. Like if I drag brake on a smooth descent I can feel (and see) the lever pulsing in and out a little bit. The rotor is straight, but I can measure one spot on the rotor that's ~.05mm thicker. So most of the rotor measures 1.91mm, and one area measures around 1.95 or 1.96mm. The rear rotor (that doesn't pulse) is more uniform than that, but some other well used sram rotors I have lying around seem to have more variation. I don't think I've ever checked rotors for consistency of thickness before, so I'm not sure if the variation is the source of the pulsing, or if the pulsing is something else. But if it's something else, I'm not sure what it'd be, given that the brake lever is physically moving.

Everything in the brake system is new (handful of rides on them), so it's not a wear issue.

[forty]

i have seen rotors with thickness issues, and it did do what you describe, but it was enough of a variance that you could easily tell be eye/feel of the rotor so im guessing far larger than a .05 difference

swap f/r rotors and see if problem moves to back?

[singlesline]

I just bought the burnishing tool and its a night and day difference just burnishing them and making sure they are round. I can't imagine what it would be like to get the legs aligned.

Kind of begs the question of how all these forks are making it on to many-thousand dollar bikes if the problem is so easy to diagnose and fix with a simple (but precision machined) tool…

[Gunder]

Kind of begs the question of how all these forks are making it on to many-thousand dollar bikes if the problem is so easy to diagnose and fix with a simple (but precision machined) tool…

In all my years of riding and shooting lots of bikes each year for catalogs I’ve never ran across a fork that needed bushings burnished. Or a modern fork that needed “aligned” It’s also standard operating procedure to tear a brand new fork down give it a good cleaning before riding it and give it a proper lower service and grease the seals. It’s amazing how many forks ship with dry lowers….

It’s mind boggling to me how many people think suspension intervals are this magic black box with no clue how they actually operate. It’s the same folks that tend to get taken for a ride by various snake oil sales man in the suspension “tuning” business. There is very very few people I’d actually pay money to to properly “tune” a setup. And even fewer suspension mods I’d pay for. Vorsprung and Push are the only two.

[J. Barron DeJong]

In all my years of riding and shooting lots of bikes each year for catalogs I’ve never ran across a fork that needed bushings burnished. Or a modern fork that needed “aligned” It’s also standard operating procedure to tear a brand new fork down give it a good cleaning before riding it and give it a proper lower service and grease the seals. It’s amazing how many forks ship with dry lowers….

It’s mind boggling to me how many people think suspension intervals are this magic black box with no clue how they actually operate. It’s the same folks that tend to get taken for a ride by various snake oil sales man in the suspension “tuning” business. There is very very few people I’d actually pay money to to properly “tune” a setup. And even fewer suspension mods I’d pay for. Vorsprung and Push are the only two.

Seems like if Fox sells a ‘bushing sizing tool’, they must believe undersized bushings occur somewhat regularly.

[joetron]

Cool cool cool, so you’re calling Diaz a snake oil salesman? I think a lot of satisfied customers on this board would disagree.
It’s funny, because I thought the Luftkappe I had sucked, and I think that most Push shocks and tunes are over mostly over-damped. They work for some, but aren’t my bag.
If you’ve never felt tight bushings when you’re tearing down all these forks, you’re missing something. Your suspension can work better.
You actually think that every fork lower casting is perfectly aligned?


Edited for assholery reduction.

[toast2266]

Back when I regularly rode with a bunch of rockshox guys in the late 90's / early 00's, it was pretty well established that futzing with the bushings was a very common practice, and something that they'd do to almost every fork that was intended to feel super awesome. So doing a bit of bushing work is certainly not a new thing.

I also suspect (without any evidence aside from anecdotes) that QC took a bit of a dip during covid. Across pretty much all products, not just suspension.

[east or bust]

I've never dealt with Diaz, but based on the amount of positive feedback I've read here and elsewhere online it seems pretty ignorant to lump them in with the hacks.

[skinipenem]

I've never dealt with Diaz, but based on the amount of positive feedback I've read here and elsewhere online it seems pretty ignorant to lump them in with the hacks.

Diaz is solid. Definitely not a snake oil salesman. He is no slouch. He began designing the runt well before ohlins and manitou came out with their systems.
I'm biased though as we've been friends for a long time. So take that with a grain of salt.

Alignment and bushings are a real thing though.

Fox 38 less than a season old let's held on by bushing friction alone:






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[skinipenem]

Double post

[MegaStoke]

Question regarding chainline:

My hardtail has a BSA 73 BB shell, a Dub BB, and full X01 Eagle group. 148mm rear end, pretty sure the chainline is 52mm.


I’d like to buy a set of power meter cranks, and these are stated as being 55mm chainline.
https://www.sram.com/en/sram/models/fc-xx-p-d1

If I wanted to bring the chainline back in 3mm, will this WolfTooth ring achieve that? Or does the 3mm offset ring just keep the chainline at 55mm?
https://www.wolftoothcomponents.com/...ountain-cranks

[jdadour]

I just bought the burnishing tool and its a night and day difference just burnishing them and making sure they are round. I can't imagine what it would be like to get the legs aligned.

Been reading a lot about burnishing bushings lately. What tool did you use? Pretty straightforward process?

[Roxtar]

Been reading a lot about burnishing bushings lately. What tool did you use? Pretty straightforward process?

This guy sells a nice one:
https://www.pinkbike.com/buysell/3236867/