B R H said:
The 2005 Fox manual shows the same oil levels for all the air forks (30 ml left under air piston, 155 ml right, 5 ml top of air piston). It lists different U-cup (air piston) seals, but they look the same on mine. Any idea what this is all about (maybe a different durometer based on stroke for wear)? Also, what about the negative & top-out springs? Are these the same on all the forks? Mine look identical between the 100 & 130 and it seems logical that they would be the same on the 80 as well.
I think that from a perspective of a mass produced item, the less you vary between one item and the next, the more you profit. This most likely leads to all 32mm Fox forks being nearly identical. I think that in our conversation we have uncovered all of them. I do think that the negative spring is identical in all 32mm Fox offerings, could even be the same in the 36 and 40 for all I know, but I don't want to venture into uncharted territor (at least by me). The fact that the new crowns are shaved on the Floats probably suggests that the design passed long term reliability concerns and is safe to use throughout. I would imagine if all crowns are shaved around the outside, then it equals one less cast and cheaper production. I don't now why the different U-cup seals, and why they appear to be identical, your guess is as good as mine. So it all boils down to the spring, wheather air, coil or talas, assist spring on the damper (vanilla), length of the damper (F series), the steerer (thinner on F series), presence of v brake bosses, shaved crown (looks like it varies, not shaved on Vanilla, I've got one of the new ones), shaved truss (F series), hard annodized internal area of the stanchion (Float) and finally, R, RL, RLC variance. All these little details are pretty minor, which makes me believe that Fox guys are brilliant at marketing their nearly identical forks, which vary very mildly between one another and vary in cost substantially. It seems funny now that the F costs so much more than the plain Float, where the main difference, in terms of production steps is the machining of the truss off of the connector between the lowers, while the end result is an inferior fork in terms of performance.
_MK