If I'll remember, I can measure it for you when I come back home, give me a photo which one though, or you could just measure it yourself, since it's useless anyway.

 

Just want to shoutout Oliver at Blue Liquid Suspension. He was able to eliminate the creaking CSU and burnished bushings while it was with him. Fork is quiet and feeling great.

 

For anyone having trouble getting the IRT air spring right, have you tried the IVA with the traditional volume spacers? I've never used one but it should work like everyone else's air spring with the IVA setup.

 

I've tried to aim for LSC fully closed but the faster the trail the more I have to back off any applied comporession damping as the faster I ride the exponentially worse the forks gets at throwing me around.

This sounds all too familiar. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and will update once I have the new casting installed/tested.

LS Rebound: er.. Not sure but the indicator sits at about 1400.

Is that GMT? Or DST? And in what position are you sitting when you read it?

 

New to me Mezzer owner here. Some great info in this thread so thanks for that.

Really liking them so far, except on fast chattery trails as has been mentioned a bit. Still early days playing with the settings though. They're Expert's and I would like to do the IRT upgrade but it seems they've shot up in price in my country and it'd cost over half the price I paid for the forks.

Anyway, getting quite a bit of stiction currently so I'm going to give them a service. I have a few questions about that if you don't mind...

• I have a BS214 O-ring (not quad) ready to go on. What's the consensus here? Has anyone else had issues? I weigh 76kg. I did read someone ran into issues running a regular O-ring but it turned out to be a scratch on the inside of their stanchion.
• I have Motul Fork Oil Expert 20W Semi Syn (Viscosity at 40°C 81.1 mm²/s) - would that work well or is semi synthetic oil in the lowers a no-no?
• I'm only a couple of clicks from fully open rebound and wouldn't mind lighter compression clicks - for damper oil Is Putoline HPX R 2.5 (I have lots of it) worth a try or would it be too thin?

 

Putoline will work fine, worst case you'll have to close the low speed rebound a little more (the damper may be louder though), oring in the main spring is not a good idea I believe, I did have a scratch inside the stanchion, but still, Dougal said that they didn't hold air for any kind of aggressive riding, I'd stay with the factory seals if I were you in that case, the undersized seal doesn't make that much of a difference.
Bushings sizing and fork alignment is what you need probably if you're experiencing a lot of initial stiction.
Cannot chime in the fork oil for the lowers, it'll probably be fine though, not sure if the best.

 

In the middle of servicing... could anyone advise on how to get the the valve/foot nut off an Expert air shaft, to install the 10x3 seal? It seems the nut spins independently of the shaft and piston.

And the shaft isn't moving smoothly through it at all, which I'm guessing is contributing to the stiction that I'm getting.

Thanks!

 

In the middle of servicing... could anyone advise on how to get the the valve/foot nut off an Expert air shaft, to install the 10x3 seal? It seems the nut spins independently of the shaft and piston.

View attachment 2156775

And the shaft isn't moving smoothly through it at all, which I'm guessing is contributing to the stiction that I'm getting.

View attachment 2156776

Thanks!

You need shaft clamps to counter hold the shaft in order to loosen the footnut. You may also require just a touch of heat as the footnut has some threadlock on it. I swapped out the lower quad ring for a 10x3 oring last week and I didn't require any heat as the amount of threadlock was miniscule. Make sure you have the torque settings to hand and also some blue threadlock for reassembly.

 

Pressure changes due to temperature

tl;dr: going from a 70 degree garage to summer riding (~90 degrees) can raise pressures by 2+ PSI in the main chamber.

I was testing out the new casting and when I went to adjust the main chamber pressure, I realized it was ~2-3 psi higher than I expected. The only things that had changed was that I was ambient air temp and riding for a bit. I knew that higher temperature will create higher pressures, but I never really thought it would make a noticeable difference. I had some time last night and decided to throw some numbers at excel.

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert in thermodynamics, but I took a course in college. If someone knows better, please correct me. But what I calculated lines up with past experience. I'm also mixing my units in the description, but everything was properly converted for the calculations (I think ).

Process:

• Using the ideal gas law (PV=mRT), gas constant for air, volume of the main chamber (~33mm diameter at 160mm displacement), initial pressure, and ~70 degrees F for my garage, I calculated the mass of air in the main chamber.
• Using that value for m, I put in different values for T to see what happened.

Observations:

• 56psi in the main chamber at 70 degrees F would end up being ~58psi main at 90 degrees ambient.
• Higher pressures see a slightly increased delta (68psi -> 70.5psi)
• From a 53psi @ 70degree starting point, every 10 degree change results in a 1 psi change.
• If we assume the internal air volume heats up due to suspension movement during a descent, pressure increases in a linear fashion and you'll have a slightly firmer fork at the bottom than the top. (eg from 56psi @ 90degree start, if T=110 degrees at the bottom, pressure would be ~58psi.)

Conclusion:

• Setting the same pressure inside vs outside/on the trail DOES make a noticeable difference
• Best practice would be to note where you set the pressure so you can adjust accordingly. In this example: I set sag in my garage at 56psi, but to have that same pressure at the trail I would want to lower it ~2psi to 54 degrees.

In the end it satisfied a curiosity and will be something I keep in mind going forward.

Is it actually useful/actionable for anyone else?

 

When I set pressures I set them right before I leave the parking lot for a ride. I'm not sure its a meaningful difference, but out of habit I do that because the bike will have been out in the sun/ambient temp for the drive there, so the pressure should stay fairly stable once I start riding. I usually ride 2-3 times a week and I check pressures once a week or so.

 

Silly question probably, but once I've set air pressures, I assume there is no issue with adjusting pressures either the IRT or main air shaft without restarting the process right? Can I adjust the IRT once the main has been set without causing any issue?

 

You can, but its not recommended to get the most accurate pressures. The best way is to release the pressure in the main, set the IRT, then set the main, that way you make sure the IRT is fully extended when its pressure is set.

 

I have an update to post but need to touch base with Dougal first. In short as suggested above I think the fork was packing and air pressure was also way wrong. Things now seem to be going in the right direction and I've set several PBs on chunky blacks on bracketing runs with the bike feeling far more composed and the fork being in synergy with the Mara PB. I've not been trying to ride particularly fast either! Fitting the 10x3 oring to the lower sealhead has also highlighted that I was experiencing air transfer issues between the negative chamber and the fork lower. I've currently switched to the poppy tune which I've had to run more open to compensate. More bracketing and runs required to see how far I can improve things but for now this is by far the best and most balanced my bike has been since purchase 2 years ago.

 

Good to hear that things are going better. Having the fork in a good spot is very important for riding, I think
Maybe I should do that 10x3 oring mod. I have the oring, but somehow I'm scared of screwing that one up.

 

Can I safely remove the footnut of the airspring without having to buy shaft clamps? Can I secure it in a vice wrapped in a inner tube?

 

With regard to nipping the rebound shaft up in a vice I have the following observations to share. I can remove both endcaps by counterholding the outer damper tube using an inner tube (by hand) but I genuinely doubt I could do the same, or similar, with the rebound shaft. After the first try with my shaft clamps I had to clean everything down with alcohol and really tighten them down to get sufficient purchase to prevent ithe rebound shaft from spinning. The footnut came off but it was 'tight' and that was with the tiniest amount of threadlock shown on the threads. I would suggest either following piciu256 advice which seems sound or being patient and picking up a pair of inexpensive shaft clamps from somewhere like Ali Exp.

 

Just put a hardened rod through the piston spring clip.

 

Thank you for putting this together.

 

Smashpot. So good. Got it together and installed today. Rode this evening. It does that thing that I just couldn't get the manitou spring to do, support while being sensitive. Just made me want to keep riding all night long. So much more traction riding up on jank stuff at speed. Just out testing and adjusting rebound and stuff and 2nd fastest time on the tech trail. I started with 3 clicks of the HBO, which I adjusted, but I think that's probably a decent setting. It doesn't seem to be fighting the manitou HBO, so it's probably a pretty "light" setting for the smashpot HBO-meaning I'm using normal amount of travel like before. The Smashpot is kind of the "ultimate" coil spring, based on how tunable it is, dual-rate springs, the HBO, the general construction, etc. I had a Push ACS3, but the Smashpot is far more advanced. It's also kinda like IKEA, you have to build it from the parts that come in th package. If you don't ride very hard, this probably isnt worth it, you can use the IRT to make the initial travel sensitive and you won't go hard into the progressive part, but if you ride very hard, you can't set up a fork like this, because you'll be running into that progressive part all the time and getting a lot of deep-stroke harsh and pack-up. Something like a Z1 coil would probably be better in that case if you are looking for more sensitivity. Setting up the Mezzer "linear" would just kill my hands. Now, it works...and I don't ever have to hook a pump up to the bottom of the fork again.

 

Glad to hear the Smashpot is working well in the Mezzer. I've been wondering about the double HBO and if would be too much out on the trail. Glad it's not an issue. I just sold my Mezzer and have a Z1 air and Z1 coil on different bikes. The Z1 coil is the plushest but the dampening at high speed kind of feels primitive and spikey - same thing on the Z1 air. It's not a problem 90% of the time so I just learned to get used to it. That said, how does the Mezzer-Pot compare to a Z1 coil in terms of small bump compliance for moderate trail riding? Is it way more active in the initial stroke now?

 

Serious Bicycle Suspension | Shockcraft take that into account though, seems to coincide with users experiences too.

 

It's a ridiculous “review” of someone who just ride slow on gravel roads so you shouldn't trust that.

 

Notice that the review doesn't say the damper is bad per se, just that the provided tunes are really stiff. As long as you fit inside the range, the damper will be good, but personally I don't see the point, since for the same money or less you can send your existing damper to be tuned and have the same or better performance imo.
The Otter guy seems to for inside the "slowly riding on gravel roads" kind of rider unfortunately, at least his reviews are based off those kinds of trails, I like what he did with the Float X2 (making it loud and clear that the adjustments are placebo etc.) but some of the assumptions he makes (for example the "bladder is more responsive" thing he keeps repeating, based off comparing completely different shocks with different tunes is just ridiculous, especially the length he went to basically making fun of Steve from Volsprung, because he disagrees...)
Plus as said before, his testing methodology consists of rolling some smooth trails and hucking to flat, which doesn't give much variability, the setting he most often ends up with reflect that too, LSC completely open in this case for example, for me personally those kinds of setting don't work well at all, too wallowy, but then again I prefer a bit tougher terrain for the most part and am more active on the bike than he appears.

 

Notice that the review doesn't say the damper is bad per se, just that the provided tunes are really stiff. As long as you fit inside the range, the damper will be good, but personally I don't see the point, since for the same money or less you can send your existing damper to be tuned and have the same or better performance imo.
The Otter guy seems to for inside the "slowly riding on gravel roads" kind of rider unfortunately, at least his reviews are based off those kinds of trails, I like what he did with the Float X2 (making it loud and clear that the adjustments are placebo etc.) but some of the assumptions he makes (for example the "bladder is more responsive" thing he keeps repeating, based off comparing completely different shocks with different tunes is just ridiculous, especially the length he went to basically making fun of Steve from Volsprung, because he disagrees...)
Plus as said before, his testing methodology consists of rolling some smooth trails and hucking to flat, which doesn't give much variability, the setting he most often ends up with reflect that too, LSC completely open in this case for example, for me personally those kinds of setting don't work well at all, too wallowy, but then again I prefer a bit tougher terrain for the most part and am more active on the bike than he appears.

Im on the lower end of the yellow tune, and its far from being too stiff.

 

Sure... I also thought that my Mezzers tune was nice at my 55kg weight, didn't hurt or anything like that, traction felt good (because it was still miles better than the under damped things in every other fork I rode) but only once I made it less stiff (removed the remaining second shim) did I realize the mistake I made, by not going softer earlier. Anyway, I could bet money that you also run your LSC adjustment either wide open, or close to open. Try closing that and tell me it's supple still. It's easy to say that there isn't too much HSC, when all the oil is flowing through a large orifice, bypassing the stack, but that's what we're trying to fix by going to a different damper in the first place, aren't we? (comparing to Rock Shox and some Fox stuff)