Reverb rebuild fail - throw it in the bin?

c3024446

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Recently i bought a broken reverb (non-stealth) off someone to rebuild as a project. It's a V1 post (silver collar), so it was out of warranty.
The top cap was flogged so I replaced it, and I thought that doing a full bleed of everything (post internals + hose) and putting a new seal kit on it would make it good as new - wrong!

There is a major problem with it that I have become obsessed with fixing and just can't - it sinks slowly under load, not just 20mm or so, but will sink the entire travel length. Takes about 5 minutes to go from full extension to the bottom. When i push the button on the bars it pops back up. It's like there is a problem with the valve at the top of the post and it is opening when i load the post by sitting on it.

I have replaced this valve, put new o-rings on it, played around with oil heights, nothing will stop it from slowly sinking. Can't find a similar problem on the net anywhere. I've bled the post internals three times, changed the oil height for the valve around 10 times (put in too much, too little , just right), but it still sinks! Followed the rockshox videos exactly.

I've burned through alot of fluid, time and now money trying to fix this. Is the next step throwing it in the bin?
 

ctguru

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Recently i bought a broken reverb (non-stealth) off someone to rebuild as a project. It's a V1 post (silver collar), so it was out of warranty.
The top cap was flogged so I replaced it, and I thought that doing a full bleed of everything (post internals + hose) and putting a new seal kit on it would make it good as new - wrong!

There is a major problem with it that I have become obsessed with fixing and just can't - it sinks slowly under load, not just 20mm or so, but will sink the entire travel length. Takes about 5 minutes to go from full extension to the bottom. When i push the button on the bars it pops back up. It's like there is a problem with the valve at the top of the post and it is opening when i load the post by sitting on it.

I have replaced this valve, put new o-rings on it, played around with oil heights, nothing will stop it from slowly sinking. Can't find a similar problem on the net anywhere. I've bled the post internals three times, changed the oil height for the valve around 10 times (put in too much, too little , just right), but it still sinks! Followed the rockshox videos exactly.

I've burned through alot of fluid, time and now money trying to fix this. Is the next step throwing it in the bin?
out of interest, did you use a full rebuild kit or just the seal kit when you tried to fix it?
 

FC'n

Squid
I take it that your seat tube is not full of reverb oil? This is a common problem that occurs when the inner seal head o-ring squeezes out of its channel as the seal head unthreads itself. It pretty much happens once or twice a year on my stealth. Fairly easy fix and loctite on the thread slows down the recurrence. Reverbs are a pain but I am too tight arsed to give up on it just yet!

I had a situation with the Reverb Stealth where the poppet valve had fouled the inside of the inner tube, so that the valve would kind of get stuck open and the seat would go down. Using some toothpaste as a mild grinding agent, I crudely reamed the inner tube with the poppet valve until it had free movement. I was able to test it without the handle bar actuator by pressing down directly on the the poppet with the hose barb removed from the poppet cover and making sure it was returning to the starting position with 250psi in the tube. Dont do this without the poppet cover on as the poppet will fly out! Remarkably after such a dodgy fix, the post still works to this day.

The standard reverb has some differences and I haven't seen inside one, but I think is has a similar poppet valve but actuated from the top. Could be totally unrelated to your problem but it sounds like you had already done whatever else I could suggest.

BTW is this the reverb post that was on Perth MTB? If so, and if you decide to ditch it could you please let me know. Hopefully you can fix it! Good luck!
 
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