[DimitrisCSD]

Hello all.

I'm hoping your knowledge can be of some help here.

I have a 2012 Rockshox Revelation RCT3 Dual Air. Great fork, I bought it off a certain well known german website in 2012. I rode kind of a lot during that year and then in 2013 I went away for 9 months for military service as it's mandatory in my country.

Now I'm done and I started riding again. The fork has not been serviced at all this whole time, but honestly the second year that I have it, it's had almost no action.

After a recent inspection I realized that when I hold the front brake and rock the bike back n forth without being on it, there's a very slight knock coming from where the stanchions meet the seals. It's like not even 1 mm but I can certainly feel it. It's not the headset and it's not the pads moving in the caliper.

Funny thing is when I used the second method of checking for play, I almost couldn't feel anything. That second method is: remove the wheel, grab the fork crown with one hand and the lowers arch with the other and rock the fork back n forth. It was way less almost in-existent that way... Weird.

Also if I get on the bike, or if I compress the fork slightly, the play goes away.


I know the fork needs a service anyway after all this time however my question is: Will this problem go away with normal re-greasing/fresh oil and replacement of whatever o-rings/seals/foam rings need changing?
Could it be worn bushings already? It seems a bit early to me, considering the use for bushings to be worn...

I also plan to lower the fork to 140 with a spacer during it's first service.

Please enlighten me!

 

[d-bug]

Some play is generally normal, though ****ing annoying as heck. Once the stanchions get lubed, the oil fills the gap and it will go away or be much less noticeable.
You could pull the lowers and check for any abnormal wear on the stanchions and give it some clean oil in the lowers.

 

[honns]

If there is play, I would def pull the lowers and see if there is any wear on the stanchions. Any slop generally leads to increased wear.

That said, I ran into something similar not too long ago where I was feeling some play in my fork when playing with my brakes. Turned out to be a little bit of slop in my front hub (15mm adapters) as a result of not being clamped with the QR enough. Since you removed your wheel and lost the play, maybe it could be something similar?

 

[DimitrisCSD]

Thanks to both of you for your answers.

The fork is going in for a full service (damper o-rings, oil and lowers and travel changed to 140) anyway. That means the mechanic will hopefully check the stanchions for wear. I really doubt there's anything wrong in that department though as I've been extremely thorough after every ride, cleaning the dust seals with a toothpick to remove the dirt and then using a silicon spray for better cleaning and some lubing.

The thing I totally accept is that after 2 years the amounts of oil in there should be lower and as I've read online, sometimes the forks come with less oil than needed as new.
Could the addition of new oil in the service really get rid of this slight play?

After further inspection I have confirmed that there indeed is a small amount of play only on the right leg (damper side). The left leg seems solid.

I have now turned the bike upside down and im going to leave it like this for a while to see if it gets any better with oil soaking everything up in there.

I will book a service at a LBS this week but I have my fingers crossed as I'm not sure this guy will know how to change or fix bushings if there indeed is a problem there... The next option would be posting the fork to the official SRAM representative of Greece which is in Athens and I have heard horrendous things about them. Like they take 1 month or more to fix issues...

 

[DimitrisCSD]

Some extra info:

I stumbled upon this video which describes my problem exactly. The spot of the problem, the sound and the knocking is exactly the same, however I think that mine has a little less play.

Just so you guys get a better idea of what's going on.

 

[DimitrisCSD]

Just an update to this subject, in case someone googles this or runs in a similar situation:

After inspection during the service, the mechanic let me know that some rubber part of the rebound assembly was 'cut'. He said this was mainly because of insufficient lubrication in addition to the long time that the bike wasn't used (9 months that I was away). After I asked him about the bushings he said they were OK and the issue didn't occur because of them.

Today I received my forks, serviced with new o-rings, oil, seals and with this said part replaced (I didn't exactly understand which part it was, but it wasn't part of the rockshox service o-ring and seal kit). He also lowered the fork by 10mm (it is now 140mm) as per my request.

I just finished putting it back on my bike and the result is satisfying. There is no play at all, no knocking, nothing. Also the action of the fork is really smooth and I can't wait to get it on the trail and try it out!