[JuliusHettig]

So I rebuilt my RS Monarch 4.2 yesterday, but this time I also decided to bleed the air out of the damper rod too. I figured that getting rid of as much air from the damper will yield the best results... However when I had my shock all together, I was unable to fully turn my gate switch to the locked position. It seemed like it was hydro locking as it was unable to overpower the IFP, and releasing the IFP pressure allowed me to turn the switch.

So what I'm wondering is if I'm a dummy and I'm doing it wrong, or if it is actually required to have some air in the damper. In my mind, if there's air in the damper then the IFP will move up from it's correct positon as it is being pressurized, due to the bubbles in the oil compressing.

What are your thoughts? RS service manuals do not call for a thorough bleed, for good reason?

 

[mtnbikej]

I take it you followed the directions on page 136:

http://cdn.sram.com/cdn/farfuture/x...148/sites/default/files/techdocs/tm_my102.pdf

That is what the small compression ball is for....to allow you to bleed out any air in the damper body after you reinstall the damper piston.

Or did you maybe not turn the flood gate to fully open?

 

[JuliusHettig]

Rockshox's bleed procedure will certainly get the job done, but it doesn't remove the air from the damper shaft. I have followed their instructions to the letter in a previous rebuild, and it worked fine, but I wanted to experiment with removing that air to see what happens. I did in fact remove every bit of air from the system. The result was that I was unable to turn the gate switch because the compression/rebound rod that the switch is pushing down cannot move because it is trying to displace oil and there's no air to allow for compression.

So what I was getting at in my original post is that it seems that Rockshox's method really is the best way to do it because it leaves air in the shaft, and it is actually counter productive to get rid of it. My guess is that whatever air is left in the system has little to no effect on damping.