Shocks… One of the most hated stuff amongst builder?

Shocks have a love/hate relationship to most of us. We hate messing with the slippery silicone oil but we love the performance of a good shock-setup…

Anyway, the shocks in the kit are pre-built. Oil is included. However, I found them not as smooth to be to my likings so I had to dissasemble them…

Here is the insides. You can see the red valve, piston and the two seals surronding the bushing.

I found the original bushing being the problem. If you tighten the nut holding the seals in place the shaft the orings pinched around the piston making it hard to move. If you instead loosened the nut about half a lap everything whent smooth. I tried to change the bushings which originally is 2.6mm to a 2mm from Xray I had laying around. This deffinetily solved the problem. 

• Original bushing, 2.6mm thick

• Team Xray bushing, 2mm thick

The o-rings and bushing got some silicone grease on them before everything was put back together. Add a drip of oil on the piston before you push it through and you will have less of a chance cutting or damaging the seals.

Finally, fill everything with oil as per manual. THese shocks doesn´t have any volume compensating device inside so don´t overfill them! Then, you will have a bounce compression as the volume doesn´t compensate for the piston moving inwards.

Time to put them on the chassis…

Happy building!