[dragbike]

In my brand NEW 2009 Vanilla RL fork I just installed a stiffer / green spring. When I compress the fork now it REALLY makes some noise and is not smooth at all. Is this normal? The stock softer blue spring really didn't make any noise at all and compressed smoothly. Also, the new spring had some sort of black plastic heat shrink around the middle., approx 3- 4 inches I'd say. Is this normal or should this be cut-off and removed? the stock spring had about a 3 inch section of clear plastic but at the top.

There was some sort of lube inside the spring's stanchion but not much. The spring I pulled out had some on it (not much though). Should I ad some more of this lube? If so what is it? When I put the new spring in I shook the fork up-down and side-side to try and move this lube around. This didn't seem to help.

Is it accurate that I'm not suppose to lube/grease the new spring per Fox instructions? In a Rock Shox fork i had prior I did grease the hell out of it per the Rockshox instructions.

i'll ad that this fork is brand new and never used as of yet

thanks
-Chris D

 

[dropadrop]

The rubber is supposed to be there to reduce the noise and friction when the compressing spring rubs against the inside of the fork leg. I had the same problem (though the noise or feeling was not "extreme") when I just switched the spring in my Van 36. I found a tube of pretty thick Pedros grease and smeared it on the plastic (and a bit on the coil). No more noise or shakey feeling..

Don't know if this is your problem but could be worth a try.