Should my Pike need servicing every few rides?

[stirk]

Suggests any part which is under pressure from angles is the cause and binding, old fork with old dry and hard rubber seals needs a full rubber replacement. I'm going through the same process with a motorbike. Rubber sitting dry and unused gets hard quick.

 

[mark22]

Are you are adding 10ml of 0-30w oil in the lowers. Making sure you don't squirt it up into the air shaft or damper shaft?

 

[RealizE]

Yep. I leave all the oil to drain out each time I have them apart and then syringe fresh oil into the open cavity each time.

The only thing I can think of is a bushing somehow getting out of alignment, if that is even possible????

They work perfecty with no horizontal loading.

 

[kbekus]

The only 2 contact points (once you remove the air spring and damper) are a bushing and a dust seal in each leg, right? So yeah, it seems like it must be something to do with either of those parts.... can you pop the dust seals out and reseat them (and check they're not slightly mangled).

 

[Live2DieTrying]

Twisted CSU I reckon! Stanchions are somehow out of alignment. Check your front hub and dropout spacing are exactly 100mm...?
I know that dual crown forks can bind like this with the axle clamped tight without a wheel inside...

 

[link1896]

Twisted CSU I reckon! Stanchions are somehow out of alignment. Check your front hub and dropout spacing are exactly 100mm...?
I know that dual crown forks can bind like this with the axle clamped tight without a wheel inside...

Laying the stanchions on a marble bench top might reveal this

 

[Earlysport]

Just on the air spring and oil topic, with solo air you can run a little oil in the upper air chamber, as the negative air equaliser is a Schrader valve that sits above the oil level. In a debonair spring if you put oil in the upper it will shortly end up in the negative air side as the equaliser is a dimple in the stanchion inner wall to let pressure past the o ring at top out. I almost prefer solo air as the oil bath in the upper really keeps it running nice for a good while...