'08 Fox DHX 5.0...Brokeded

[One Kill]

So heres the deal... I have DHX 5 that i fubar'd... on the resivour end, i managed to snap the entire eyelet off, so what i need to do is remove that black part of the shock body.

Now, what i have done so far is pretty much disassemble the whole thing, bar the main chamber and all the rebound internals. The entire threaded portion of the shock where the preload for the coil is is still in one piece.

I have everything out of the resivour and its ready to separate from the black shock body, but here's the catch. How the funk do you break those two components down? its the only part im suck on, and its really the only part im stuck on. I have had people tell me that they put a high grade loctite on the alleged thread, so i smacked it up with a blow-torch, but to no success.

Now please, no 'send it away to fox' stuff, if i was going to do that, i would have done it. Besides, i like doing things like this, im good with it, and i have rebuilt shocks before, just not having to remove this part. I am a bike mech, so im pretty able to do the work involved. I just want to know if any has done this before and has any tricks to it. Its got me stumped.

Spanks all.

 

[spinner]

You could try a ball pein hammer , use the round end and peen all around the area that has the thread in it. This will stretch the diameter a little and hopefully give you a fair chance of getting the res unscrewed.

Plan B here would be to warm it up after peening but don't get it too hot and have the part in the vice ready to get on to it. You want the heat to expand the outer part before it soaks into the reservoir part and also expands it.

When peening have the part sitting on something firm so you are making an impact with the hammer. If its not putting little dents in the part , you're not getting anywhere.

What are you using to grab the reservoir body ?

 

[Welshy]

Hey mate,

This will be a pickle unless you have balls of steel, and a nicely packed wallet should it (expect it to) go wrong.

When assembled at the factory the reservoir is reverse threaded into the end with permanent loctite.

The only way to get it undone requires a propane blow torch to heat up the area around the thread, and unscrew it. Your best bet for unscrewing it is one of those fandangled rubber plumbers wrenches around the reservoir and put the rest of it in a vice.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the other part of the body (with the preload ring) is also connected in much the same way.

EDIT: Just out of curiosity, how in the hell did you snap the eyelet off?

 

[One Kill]

I have the proper pipe clamps, 30.6mm dia, about 40mm tall... The right tools for the job in other words.

As for the loctite, i was afraid of them doing that. The main shock chamber (threaded for the preload ring and coil) came out alot easier, but i think that was purely because i broke the whole fudgein' end of the shock. I was thinking that i hit it with the blowie, while in a vice and try to knock it around, but it really didn't want to do any sever damage to the resivour. I shall prevail...

 

[Red Rocket]

Hey mate,

This will be a pickle unless you have balls of steel, and a nicely packed wallet should it (expect it to) go wrong.

When assembled at the factory the reservoir is reverse threaded into the end with permanent loctite.

The only way to get it undone requires a propane blow torch to heat up the area around the thread, and unscrew it. Your best bet for unscrewing it is one of those fandangled rubber plumbers wrenches around the reservoir and put the rest of it in a vice.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the other part of the body (with the preload ring) is also connected in much the same way.

EDIT: Just out of curiosity, how in the hell did you snap the eyelet off?

Are you it's reverse threaded on Fox? All the 5th's/Manitou's I've taken apart are standard thread

 

[hmcleay]

I once had major trouble trying to get the reservoir off my shock.
(I wanted to take it apart and see how the propedal worked).
I didn't have a proper shaft clamp for my vice, so you're already one step ahead of me. But it turns out that the reservoir fits exactly into the seat tube of my glory. So I stuck it in there, did the seat clamp up, and unthreaded it with a large shifter on the 'black part'.
It took a bit of force, but it worked, and no heat was required.
For the record, the reservoir is a normal right-hand thread.