Fork service. How hard??

[Bill]

It's a 9 year old Rock Shox Sector air fork that's never (The shame!! ) been serviced and is now beyond awful to ride. And it looks like my LBS has gone over the winter.

I can't find a video of the specific fork and the damper video I found was a bit intimidating...

[budgie smuggler]

Not difficult. However what do you mean by "beyond awful"... usually RockShox just go a bit sticky when a service is overdue. If it's more than that wrong with it, it could be that a seal is failing inside the air spring or damper. Again, this is not difficult, but slightly more involved than a lower leg service.

Once you have it open you will see that these are very very simple designs.

I would start with a lower leg service, inspect/re-seat/lube up the foam rings (if that model had them) and go from there. It's about a 20 minute job once you have done it a couple of times.


SRAMs own videos on the process are pretty good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z1XVrAlUtI

Edited by budgie smuggler on Tuesday 21st April 10:47

[v8notbrave]

I bought new fork, mine was too far gone for the grief needed

[nickfrog]

I don't have mine serviced. I sell them after a year or 2 and buy a new one. It works out about the same in money terms.
I just can't be bothered doing it myself.

[MC Bodge]

Bill said:

It's a 9 year old Rock Shox Sector air fork that's never (The shame!! ) been serviced and is now beyond awful to ride. And it looks like my LBS has gone over the winter.

I can't find a video of the specific fork and the damper video I found was a bit intimidating...

Easy when you know how.

[Bill]

budgie smuggler said:

However what do you mean by "beyond awful"...

Sticky, but also terrible chatter over small bumps. Pretty sure it needs an upper service too.

[budgie smuggler]

Bill said:

Sticky, but also terrible chatter over small bumps. Pretty sure it needs an upper service too.

Personally I'd still just do the lowers service as per the vid i posted. If it's not great after that, do the air spring. If it's still not great, do the damper.


Servicing the air spring is not difficult but there is more opportunity to fk it up, e.g. scratching the air shaft when you try and remove the o-rings or circlips.

Don't know exactly what fork you have but the process for the air spring is basically this:

https://www.sram.com/globalassets/document-hierarc...

[Bill]

Always happy to be talked out of work! I'll start simple and see how it goes, ta.

[SwissJonese]

Just remember to take the air out of the fork before you remove the screws, otherwise will make a nice hole in the ceiling/wall/face.

[P-Jay]

I find suspension servicing very therapeutic, but if it's not something you plan to do regularly then the cost of the various fluids and any specialist tools you might need can mean it's easier, and cheaper to send it to a pro.

RS stuff is less fussy than Fox when it comes to tools, you'll need some hex keys, maybe a set of circlip pliers and maybe a soft hammer, unless you've got a block of wood to hand. Torque wrench if the damper controls are at the bottom.