[Jon Edwards]

Got a Lyric U-turn. 3 months old, and frankly feels like a badly set up XC race fork on the small stuff. I've been hoping it'll bed in, regular oil changes, blah, but it ain't. They work OK for about a ride after an oil change, or a single DH run if i leave them upside down for a while. Then they sticky up again. I've got all the compression damping wound off.

I've asked about getting it warrantied, which Fishers (UK importer) will happily do, but with a 3 week turn around time (Tim Flooks are also fully booked up). Which ain't much use when I'm off to the Alps for the Megavalnche on Tuesday.They reckon (as I do) that its probably tight bushings. I know I've left it late, but I was really hoping that a £500 set of forks would *actually* work...

I was going to just grin and bear it, but after a 6hr trail ride yesterday, I could hardly hang onto the bars, and really can't face the thought of an hour long DH race with a setup like that.

So I'm probably going to go and buy a cylinder bore honer at lunch time and try and ease out the bushings a little. Anybody done this before? Any other options/advice?

 

[tr1cky_k1d]

Sorry I can't help but you seem to have the same problem as me.
Works fine up until 115mm mark is reached then it becomes stiff and sticky and only reacts to really big hits.
Just had the fork serviced but that didn't help either unfortunately :/

You can find my thread at:
http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?p=4627868#poststop

 

[Jon Edwards]

Yeah, I saw that. Slightly different issue in my case. I can get full travel without too many issues - in fact it feels nicely controlled when really battered. It's all the little-medium stuff thats an issue - it feels really sticky/spiky.

 

[JMH]

I have had a small taste of what you describe after an overhaul and I traced it back to using grease on the seals and bushings inside the fork legs in addition to the oil bath. I believe it was the Enduro super-slick stuff... the fork didn't like it. Now I use oil only.

If you changed the oil in the damper, could something be going wrong in there? Be very careful to use the correct weight/volume, since SRAM forks aren't tunable with oil volume. If your oil were too heavy, it would feel spikey and overdamped on HS impacts.

I have never heard of Lyrik or Totem bushing being too tight, exactly the opposite actually. They tend to be a bit on the sloppy side. I wouldn't bore them until you have eliminated all other possibilities.

My 2 cents.

 

[Jon Edwards]

Haven't touched the damper -only the splash oil in the lower legs. Might pull the damper to pieces just to check though.

 

[presslab]

Try some Finish Line stanchion lube in the bath oil?

You could hone the bushings, but it's pretty easy to damage the soft coating. I have done this on my Manitou fork and I had good results. Another option is to replace them; most all new bushings I have installed are oversized a bit, and I size them down to have a tighter fit.

 

[davep]

Honing is going to depend on bushing material, an I dont know off hand what the lyric bushing are made of...they might just have a inner coating like a DU bush, or they might be solid surface....

Before you go 'power tool', you might want to confirm that it is actually a bushing issue and not seals or something else....ie: remove seals, spring,damper and slide the upper and lower together...your mention of 'turning the fork over' says that this is NOT a bushing issue...

Two other things.....to try

1 You have a U-turn coil fork, and thus, the spring leg is open top to bottom (large air space and much larger surface to lube). I would highly suggest adding extra splash/bush oil to the spring side. 30ml works (what I use in both lyrid and boxxer), and I suspect you could use a bit more.

2 get some THIN grease like slick honey and pack the inter-seal space with the grease. This will make a big difference is seal friction, trap dust that gets past the wiper, and prolong seal life.

lastly, what are you using for splash oil? Mobil 1 has worked great for me for years for this application.