Manitou 4 Service

[retro_steel]

These came with a recent purchase and as you would expect for 21 year forks they needed a service. So stripped them down, one leg all the red elastomers had perished turning into granular paste and the bump stops both sides had turned into black goo! So I found washing them in very hot water after poking around the insides with various screwdrivers got them clean!

After searching online last thursday I went to suspensionforkparts ordered the stiff refresh kit and the email today says its on it way!

wts

 

[eshew]

Re:

Nice looking fork!

Make sure the grease you use is safe for rubber and plastic. Some regular dino grease will degrade that stuff over time. A light silicone based grease should be safe . When I rebuild mine I used the original manitou grease, but the rumor is it gets tacky with age.

 

[retro_steel]

The parcel has arrived.....

So I ordered the kit paid $53 and carriage of $16.75, vat removed the package from the original carrier and put VAT of £6-78 on and gave the package to another carrier to collect the VAT and the other carrier charged me a further £8 to do so - that's £46-73 plus £14-78 a total of £61-51

Will be rebuilding later - hope they're fantastic!

 

[retro_steel]

Rebuilt the forks tonight and put them on(the wrong bike but either will do for the moment), really quite firm now having used the firm kit, also at the top of the travel and obviously a huge improvement on how they were, took some poor pics - looking forward to trying them properly!

 

[SEANSTEPHENS]

Re:

I had the firm kit in my 4, i never rode them before hand but the forks were totally hopeless. I took the bike out on a couple of trail rides and they had next to no travel and the worlds slowest rebound. My guess is that fitting the firm elastomer kit just made a crap fork even worse

 

[retro_steel]

I think you're probably right, and I don't think I'll be doing the import routine again to get a softer kit, but they look great as an avatar!

 

[PopsTrippin]

Re:

Aaarrgghh!!! Just ordered firm kit for some Manitou 2's!! i bought some medium elastomers last year for some Pace MXCD's and found them too soft! :facepalm: :facepalm:

The Team is looking nice btw

 

[retro_steel]

You might be OK! went out tonight put 50% medium and 50% firm in, as some of the original medium survived, my instinct now is to go all firm.......anyone else played with different elastomers on these?

 

[ishaw]

You could try drilling holes in the firm ones to make them a bit softer, read that this was done bitd but not tried myself. Have rebuilt a few of these over time and mixing and matching is the way to go to get the ride you want. I've had success in using elastomer rod and drilling the inner hole myself, beware the molten elastomer burns skin.

 

[retro_steel]

You could try drilling holes in the firm ones to make them a bit softer, read that this was done bitd but not tried myself. Have rebuilt a few of these over time and mixing and matching is the way to go to get the ride you want. I've had success in using elastomer rod and drilling the inner hole myself, beware the molten elastomer burns skin.

update............
As you say mixing & matching is the way, so settled on 5 firm 1 medium in each side, worked fine for me tonight in the forestry, ok nothing too technical, all in all I'm happy with the new elastomers and as for the Team she's quick on those lanes!