|   Woefully inadequate Marathon comprehension. Larry? Anyone? | Nat
May 21, 2003 4:24 PM | | Last week I bled all the air out of the left chambers of a 2002 Marathon 100 and tried to compress the fork. It only got maybe 2"-2.5" max travel. So today I decided to drain some oil, thinking it was overfilled. Alas, what's this? A valve on the right hand leg? I gingerly depressed the pin and "ssssuuuhhhhtt." Out came some air. Now the fork compresses all the way to full travel. I guess oil height wasn't the issue after all.
So someone please explain to me what that right-hand air chamber is for. From deciphering the crappy owner's manual, I think it's rebound air damping. Is this correct? If so, does increasing the p.s.i. slow down the fork (increase the damping). How do I balance air damping with oil damping to get the best ride?
Or is it another air spring as is in the left leg?
Any other tuning tips? |
| re: Woefully inadequate Marathon comprehension. Larry? Anyone? | Ventanarama
May 21, 2003 6:20 PM | | It's a positive air chamber just like the one on the left leg. Set it to the same pressure as the left (usually 30-35psi range for most people).
Larry Mettler
http://www.mtnhighcyclery.com |
| Pos. Air Chambers are located. . . | ld
May 22, 2003 7:46 AM | | in each fork leg. These are the valves offset from the center. The left leg also has the Neg. air chamber, with the valve in the center of the left leg only.
If you check out the "tuning tips" on 'Zocchi's website, it provides a pretty decent description of what the Pos. and Neg. chambers do. Pos. chambers are used to set sag (according to rider wt.) and allow the fork to return to the fully uncompressed position. Neg. chamber adjusts "sensitivity" to topping out during the fork's return stroke.
Too little Pos. pressure, or too large Neg. pressure will prevent the fork from returning to full travel. Letting all the Pos. air out by simply pressing the valve pin will probably make your fork bottom out very easily, with the possibility of doing some damage to the fork.
Dampening is "grossly" controlled with the 3-position ECC knob on the right leg (i.e. roughly, minimum dampening, medium dampening, and rebound lock-out). You can probably modify dampening by changing oil wt. as well. Air/oil settings are pretty personal. Most people use a trial-and-error iterative process to determine what feels best for rider weight, riding style, etc. Most reccomend playing with air settings first before messing with oil levels or weights. Good luck. |
| Thank you | Nat
May 22, 2003 11:37 AM | | I understand conceptually what springs and damping (not dampening, FYI) are all about, but the manual that came with this fork is written in Italian-style English, including the term "rebound damping" via air in the left leg (turns out it's not true), and I didn't have any knowledge of the internal workings of this particular design. I finally found the tuning tips section like you suggested, and that helped. I also spent way too much time doing a search on previous postings about this fork. It seems I'm not alone in my setup woes.
Nat |
| No | Duckman
May 22, 2003 12:29 PM | | ...your not alone for sure.
Duck-glad you asked first tho. LOL!
Agree, the manual sucks. |
| I know, I know... | Nat
May 23, 2003 5:19 AM | | I could do a search first on just about any topic I might post about, and people will say, "do a search, this has come up before!" However, you know people are DYING to spout off and post a new message. Otherwise we'd all be reading the same old posts in the archives all the time and not having any fun. |
| "damping" | ld
May 22, 2003 12:49 PM | | Yes, damping is correct. Guess that I'm a little bleary-eyed today, making my English on par with that coarsely translated fork manual.
Good luck with the fork. |
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