williwoods
Retro Guru
ok so I have several issues. I bought a donor fork for the Englund TA carts in them so I could transplant them into my 97 JudyXC connected to my '97 Bontrager Race Lite.
I got everything into my fork and all is mostly ok however. I have noticed a few things.....
1) The A2C measurement was way over the 63mm travel the stock fork had. I assume the cart had the top out springs meant for 72mm travel.
I measured them and they measure almost exactly 63mm. The instructions say that the light colored springs are for 63mm and the black springs are for 72mm. These are clearly light colored springs. Can anyone measure their 63mm top out springs for me so I can compare to mine?
2) Because I am impatient I decided to try and reduce travel myself. I found a couple of nylon nuts that are exactly 9mm tall and inserted them onto the rods and then reassembled everything, I also replaced the top out o-rings while I was at it. That brought the A2C closer to the stock A2C measurement of 420mm. I am right about at 430mm currently. The above picture shows. the nylon nut I added. I assume this is ok and that the nylon nut will not need to take alot of stress since it is only used for top out during the rebound cycle? nylon is pretty tough and seems like its the same material as the washers on the rods, is that right?
3) Both the compression pads on top of the rods were shot. they were in a bunch of pieces. they were red colored and seemed like some kind of very tough rubber. Also one of the carts was missing its plastic cap to seal off the steal tubing. I hot glued a metal washer to the end of that tubing and then inserted some tight fitting vinyl tips to the end of the carts to keep metal to metal contact at bay and in place of the missing compression pads. That seems like it should hod up. thoughts? (sorry I don't have a pic of the vinyl tips on the end of the carts.)
4) here is a pic of my setup with the stock travel on the left and the reduced travel with the nylon nut on the right. This is before I added the vinyl tips to the bottom of the carts.
5) Lastly I am concerned about the threads on the top caps. When I installed them on my fork they seemed really tight. Not tight enough to make me feel like there was a problem but it did take more effort than what seemed like it should take. I should have stopped what I was doing because when I removed them it seemed like the threads were rough. They seem to hold perfectly fine and removing them and installing them seems ok, it still requires a good amount of effort to install so there is decent resistance and yet they screw in fine. After doing more research there seems like there are two different types of top caps. An A set and a B set. Even though the fork I took them out of looked exactly like a Judy fork in every way I am wondering if in fact it was a different fork with different threads than my '97 Judy XC. Anyone have knowledge about the threads in the stanchions for different Rock Shox forks that look identical to Judy's? pic of the fork I bought below. I will try to install my guts from my '97 Judy XC into the mystery fork to see if they fit or if in fact those threads are totally different. Maybe its a Sid of some kind or a newer Judy? Just for safety sake I am now on the hunt for new top caps.
any help is greatly appreciated.
I got everything into my fork and all is mostly ok however. I have noticed a few things.....
1) The A2C measurement was way over the 63mm travel the stock fork had. I assume the cart had the top out springs meant for 72mm travel.
I measured them and they measure almost exactly 63mm. The instructions say that the light colored springs are for 63mm and the black springs are for 72mm. These are clearly light colored springs. Can anyone measure their 63mm top out springs for me so I can compare to mine?
2) Because I am impatient I decided to try and reduce travel myself. I found a couple of nylon nuts that are exactly 9mm tall and inserted them onto the rods and then reassembled everything, I also replaced the top out o-rings while I was at it. That brought the A2C closer to the stock A2C measurement of 420mm. I am right about at 430mm currently. The above picture shows. the nylon nut I added. I assume this is ok and that the nylon nut will not need to take alot of stress since it is only used for top out during the rebound cycle? nylon is pretty tough and seems like its the same material as the washers on the rods, is that right?
3) Both the compression pads on top of the rods were shot. they were in a bunch of pieces. they were red colored and seemed like some kind of very tough rubber. Also one of the carts was missing its plastic cap to seal off the steal tubing. I hot glued a metal washer to the end of that tubing and then inserted some tight fitting vinyl tips to the end of the carts to keep metal to metal contact at bay and in place of the missing compression pads. That seems like it should hod up. thoughts? (sorry I don't have a pic of the vinyl tips on the end of the carts.)
4) here is a pic of my setup with the stock travel on the left and the reduced travel with the nylon nut on the right. This is before I added the vinyl tips to the bottom of the carts.
5) Lastly I am concerned about the threads on the top caps. When I installed them on my fork they seemed really tight. Not tight enough to make me feel like there was a problem but it did take more effort than what seemed like it should take. I should have stopped what I was doing because when I removed them it seemed like the threads were rough. They seem to hold perfectly fine and removing them and installing them seems ok, it still requires a good amount of effort to install so there is decent resistance and yet they screw in fine. After doing more research there seems like there are two different types of top caps. An A set and a B set. Even though the fork I took them out of looked exactly like a Judy fork in every way I am wondering if in fact it was a different fork with different threads than my '97 Judy XC. Anyone have knowledge about the threads in the stanchions for different Rock Shox forks that look identical to Judy's? pic of the fork I bought below. I will try to install my guts from my '97 Judy XC into the mystery fork to see if they fit or if in fact those threads are totally different. Maybe its a Sid of some kind or a newer Judy? Just for safety sake I am now on the hunt for new top caps.
any help is greatly appreciated.
