FOX Talas 32 RLC rebuild (1st gen)

dazz

Downhill Dazz
So after a long wait due to Covid, thanks but no thanks mr hale, I finally got Planks I-Drive home. Bought the bike for mrs dazz to give this whole riding thing a go now that the kids are starting to ride faster than she can walk. Plank warns me that the bike has a few niggles with the non functioning height adjust on the fork being one, and I'm like "yeah no drama's". Given the the asking price, I'm not expecting everything to be perfect. Have a little peddle around with the family then my urge to fiddle takes over and much adjuster turning ensues.... Push down on the fork, CLACK, CLUNK.... ohhhh shit. Well, I was warned. Then had to inform the mrs, "sorry but I have to pull your bike apart and fix the suspension before you can ride it again."

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Anyways, after some extensive Hambo'ing on the internet, and a bit of a chat with Link I decide I don't need all the special tooling recommended for the job and have at it. The tear down went pretty well save for getting a bit of fork fluid on the front rotor. Learnt how the "Travel Adjust" and "Linear Air Spring" work and found some balls where they shouldn't be. It's seen some less than ideal treatment in it's life but my confidence level is pretty high at the moment that I can get it all working how it should again.

Pics of tear down, full 'dairy farmer' spec approach on show (work with what ya got). Thankfully nothing was too tight so I didn't need to resort to staying back after work and fumbling my way through making 'proper' tooling on the lathe or mill.

Not too many tools needed, also used rubber mallet, screw drivers and 1/4 drive deep sockets. Wooden blocks are my improvised '4 point contact soft jaws' for clamping the air chamber tubes. Didn't even check if I had the right socket for the top cap, would've needed to turn the end off it anyways, turned out it wasn't done up tight so that saved a day.
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Lots of little bits.
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Think I've pieced together what's gone wrong based on descriptions from the previous owners Jrok and Plank. Looks like the little threaded drive plug that screws into the end of the height adjust screw had come out, that allowed the mechanism to wind all the way apart and the 2 little balls top left to fall out which I found loose in the main air chamber! The height adjuster shaft was then free to flop around in there causing the clunking sound. A clean and reassemble, with a dab of loctite on the offending thread and it'll be all good. The IFP chamber had basically no pressure in it so I'll make a charge tool to get that working properly again as well.
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I do need to make an IFP chamber charge adapter though, so will show progress on that too.
Gathering the bits together to make a couple of IFP charge port adapters:
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moorey

call me Mia
Air or coil? See the local vanilla’s with a frame for $30? Stanchions look worn, internals might be fine.

edit. Read properly, air. All good.
 

Plankosaurus

Spongeplank Dalepantski
sounds like these forks found their way to the right person at least. this is why i stick to rockshox, they dont put balls where balls shouldnt be :p
 

dazz

Downhill Dazz
Update.

Washed all the small parts up and filed smooth the damage to the height adjust ball screw as best I could, to the best of my reckoning the damage was caused by some next level fuck-wittery after they got themselves in over their head attempting to 'service' the air spring assembly...
Anyways, I hope I've done enough to get it functioning correctly again, if it still jams I'm probably going to have to lock out the height adjust function.

Next step was whip the lowers off for a clean in prep for some fresh oil on re-assembly when I found that one of the stanchions has worn though the coating. Great! So now sending the CSU unit off to have the stanchions pressed out, rotated 180 degrees and re-installed. The fork isn't worth the investment of new stanchions, if they are even available. So I'll just move the worn out spot to the back and pretend like everything is fine... As long as I haven't nicked any o-rings and it holds air, I think it'll work just fine for what mrs dazz needs it to do.

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Was hoping to have em back together this weekend, oh well...
 

Plankosaurus

Spongeplank Dalepantski
Update.

Washed all the small parts up and filed smooth the damage to the height adjust ball screw as best I could, to the best of my reckoning the damage was caused by some next level fuck-wittery after they got themselves in over their head attempting to 'service' the air spring assembly...
Anyways, I hope I've done enough to get it functioning correctly again, if it still jams I'm probably going to have to lock out the height adjust function.

Next step was whip the lowers off for a clean in prep for some fresh oil on re-assembly when I found that one of the stanchions has worn though the coating. Great! So now sending the CSU unit off to have the stanchions pressed out, rotated 180 degrees and re-installed. The fork isn't worth the investment of new stanchions, if they are even available. So I'll just move the worn out spot to the back and pretend like everything is fine... As long as I haven't nicked any o-rings and it holds air, I think it'll work just fine for what mrs dazz needs it to do.

View attachment 380147

Was hoping to have em back together this weekend, oh well...
Balls

Sorry dude. I actively did as little as possible past re assembling the bike and finding a set of forks to suit it, determined not to get involved and find myself putting lots of good bits on it and deciding to find a reason to hang on to it for one of the kids

I've had similar before, bought a set of pikes at 140mm, looked good and the old bounce test felt ok. Got it home and went to stick a 160 spring in it and found a big old gouge in it. Not a scratch, easily 1-2mm deep and wide. On the plus side I learnt that tuff UV activated nail polish is actually quite capable of repairing a fork stanchion

And to be fair to the ham fisted previous mechanic, understanding a fox fork is like trying to understand imperial measurements. I'm still convinced it's not possible to comprehend either. Your detailed descriptions don't help even remotely.

Sent from my H8324 using Tapatalk
 

dazz

Downhill Dazz
All good Plank, after all it IS a 15 or 16 yr old fork. I'll get it tidied up and assembled correctly. I'm pretty confident it'll ride fine, just well worn.
 

Plankosaurus

Spongeplank Dalepantski
All good Plank, after all it IS a 15 or 16 yr old fork. I'll get it tidied up and assembled correctly. I'm pretty confident it'll ride fine, just well worn.
No-one wants worn stanchions, but if they're smooth they'll feel fine as long as you service extra regularly. Sucks tho.

With a little luck it's just a stepping stone to a proper nice bike anyway

Sent from my H8324 using Tapatalk
 

Mr Crudley

Glock in your sock
As long as they don't leak air due to the wear - which is pretty unlikely - then you should be fine. As long as you don't have any deep cuts or sharp edges then I think it will be fine.

Don't overthink it, put it back together with some fresh seals and you can't see the wear marks while you are riding anyhow :)
 

petertronica

Likes Dirt
I bought a bike with the same stantion wear as that, only the wear was all the way around the stantion.
Don't bother rotating the stantion. Just sand it to smooth out the ridges that have developed so that the seals can seal properly. Fresh oil and Job done. I did that to my sons and it's still working perfectly 1 year later.
 

dazz

Downhill Dazz
I bought a bike with the same stantion wear as that, only the wear was all the way around the stantion.
Don't bother rotating the stantion. Just sand it to smooth out the ridges that have developed so that the seals can seal properly. Fresh oil and Job done. I did that to my sons and it's still working perfectly 1 year later.
Where I work I'm lucky enough to have a few contacts that have the appropriate skills and equipment to rotate the stanchions, so it's no biggie.
I'd rather have the bushings running on the hard, low friction coating than raw aluminium. Ideally it needs new bushings too, they are pretty sloppy, but again, the fork isn't worth spending the money on it, at least for me anyways. If a future owner wants to splash some cash on it, they can go for it.
My goal is to make it reliable and to minimize any further degradation, not a full restoration.

Again with the stantions? Next you lot will be telling me the bike needs new breaks! :D;)
 
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