Long Travel BS Thread

Im just taking a hose off a brand new shock, no rebuild needed....im not worried about losing fluid, just best way to drain. Ive taken dozens of mx forks apart. Just nothing with a remote resi

 

Pull shafts dump oil. Pressurize resi and dump again. That’s about the best way I know of.

 

remove the shaft assembly and drain. You’ll have to remove them anyway to reassemble so might as well do it now.

you can crack the hose fittings open if there is no nitrogen pressure but you’re going to remove the shaft assemblies either way.

 

Im not understanding why I would have to pull the shock shaft out just to replace a resevoir hose? Why cant I just remove hose, tip shock over, and bottom shaft out until all oil is out of body?

 

how are you going to get oil back into the shock and bleed the air?

Its not necessary to get the oil out. It’s needed to get the oil back in.

 

Makes sense

 

whats your process for bleeding after everythings back together?

 

You have to pull the shaft and piston assembly to properly put fluid back in. Then bleed all the air out you have to cycle the floating piston, which you can use a 1/4x20 all thread or long ass bolt. Either way, there’s always the possibility to knick a seal/oring and it’s good to have a spare on site along with extra oil. If you were local, I’ve got all this here.

 

Thanks for the advice, if I was local Id bring them over with some beers and learn something

 

@IvanhoeTaco First I want to say I am by no means accomplished at this stuff, but living in Florida, most people here have no idea how to do a rebuild. So I decided to give it a shot, instead of shipping my shocks out west.
I used this video to do my first rebuild back a few years ago and I've done a few since.
https://youtu.be/CRaOceJt12U

 

That’s the video I watched along with suggestions on how to seat the IFP here (which way less scientific than I thought and not really what’s in that video).

The way I did the IFP was pull the shaft out and do whatever you are going to do with it. Put the valve core back into reservoir and pressurize with bike pump to full seat the IFP. Take out the valve core again, fill shock up with oil (I leave maybe 1/2” to 3/4”). If it’s a bypass put hand over opening and flip side down a few times to bleed the tubes (which need to be open at this point). Top off oil, insert shaft SLOWLY! otherwise be prepared to get covered with oil when it sprays out of the bleed holes at light speed. Once valve is submerged rock a bit and go up and down to bleed valve until no bubbles making sure to not pull valve out of oil.

Put rag around shock body and press the seal thingy into oil this should cause a bunch of oil to spill over. If it didn’t you didn’t have enough oil loaded in.

No real special tools except the top cap thing which I got from Amazon - don’t try to half ass with a screw driver or clamp.

Anyway, that’s what I learned here and that video. He’s just missing the bypass bleeding so make sure you do that too. I didn’t and had to redo all of mine.

 

Two things I’ve noticed after doing a few hose changes and shock revalve’s. One is pull the reservoir cap and get a piston depth with the shafts extended fully(not fully necessary if your reusing the fluid) and before you drain them put some pressure in and break the seal cap loose from the main seal assembly. Then you can drain however you want and change the hoses, do whatever you want then when you refill just pull the shaft refill with your old oil and cycle the piston to get all the air out. As long as the reservoir is hanging lower the air will purge itself.

 

@erok81 and @tacotunner06 Thanks, I was hoping someone would jump in w some tips. I bought the

JOYUETLAN Universal Black Finish Steel Adjustable Face Spanner Wrench Pin Pliers For Round Nuts with Drilled Holes (3mm)

spanner wrench on Amazon as well.
I think the tangs for the holes in the cap are 5mm.

I also bought some

$13 ATLIN Vise Jaws 6" - Nylon, Non Marring Soft Jaws - Multi-Purpose Design for Woodworking, Jewelry Making, Plumbing

soft jaws for my vise. Having a decent nitrogen rig is a big help also. My reg isn't the most accurate though.

 

I had no idea which size so I ended up buying a kit that had 3 of them. Worked out though because one was correct. Haha

As long as the reg can deliver 150psi you should be good.

 

My theory is that since there is such high pressure and so little volume of nitrogen in the res, the long hose I have on my rig, lowers the pressure reading when I go to check them at a later date. Since I'm still pretty green at tuning, I ended up buying a good gauge from Schmidty Racing so I have accurate readings right at the res.

 

Good call on these new shafts. Looks like they are going to work much better. Now if the rain will stop I can throw them on and cut my bump cans off (again) and move them up to accommodate this extra travel.

 

Tacoma footprint tends better to a welded eyelet.

 

What stroke are those old shaft for?

 

Yep. It was fine when I was limited by the wheel well but without that the big rod end was the limiting factor. Once it’s all done I’m going to send some pics to Dirt King. I tried explaining to them before but I don’t think they understood what I meant because they kept saying I had the wrong length shock. Figures they probably just thought I was some idiot with wrong parts because I got the shocks from DSM and not them (which I know I am an idiot but still). They were still helpful though.

Both are 8”. My problem is the shock was bottoming out due to the large rod end but it still had plenty of uptravel left with both room and my coilover. Since I pretty much got rid of that entire obstruction it should be good now.

 

Just make sure the shock isn’t bottoming out internally when resetting your bumps.