Holes appearing in suspension fork

[themadhatter106]

Hi,

So I think I would be better off posting this on a bike forum but I figured I'd give it a try here. I have a Rock Shox Silver TK fork which is about three years old. A while ago I had a small pin hole open up on one of the fork legs, which was leaking oil. I thought nothing of it and just sanded the area and patched it with JB weld.

Just last week took apart my fork and replaced the seals and oil. Then I noticed oil was leaking from somewhere. It was also affecting my front disc brakes. I found that some areas of the fork had bubbles underneath the paint and when I scraped away at the bubbles a whole lot of junk came out revealing a hole.

I found three more holes when I stated scraping away at suspect areas . Well, at least I know why I was always leaking fork oil.

View attachment 3View attachment 1

Why are random holes forming in my expensive fork?

 

[liveforphysics]

That appears to be a very low quality casting patched with bondo and painted if I had to guess.

$200 fork retail, likely with a good deal of margin over mfg costs.

Get what you pay for sometimes. Be glad you got 3 years out of it and it didn't snap in half or something that hurt you.

 

[dogman dan]

I'd be scared shitless to ride that now that you know. Akin to keeping the other three tires on the car, when one already threw it's tread off and blew out.

 

[Harold in CR]

That looks like Salt or Calcium Chloride from salting the roads in the winter. That's exactly how cheap aluminum looks in the Marine environment.

 

[themadhatter106]

Well that's a shame. I do ride year round including during the winter but my frame has never had anything like this happen to it.

It's not the original fork that came with the frame, the original fork had no damping and was essentially two spring tubes. I thought I would be getting something higher quality. The fork uppers and made of steel and those look perfectly fine when I disassembled it.

Before I bought it I looked all over for reviews of the fork and found no mention of this issue. How could I be the only one experiencing this problem? Everywhere I look there is nearly 5 star reviews.

Maybe it was a bad batch or something? It would be great If Rox Shocks would simply give me a new better quality lowers so I wouldn't have to spend a boat load of money replacing the whole fork because the fork lowers shouldn't have disintegrated in the first place.

Should I threaten to leave bad reviews with pics of their fork lowers getting holes in them?

I want Rox Shocks to do something about it, ideally fix the poor design and give/ sell at a reduced price a new fork lowers.

 

[Deafcat]

It absolutely appears to be deficient casting, which is a manufacturer defect and they should be willing to help you with it. I've worked with many aluminum castings over the years and usually bad castings are picked out prior to, or during the machining and finishing processes, but not all defects are considered critical and may be deemed cosmetic, then filled and painted over... in this case it appears the defects were deemed cosmetic but actually went much deeper, compromising the part in function.

Gotta say though, from the exposed areas shown, that looks like incredibly bad quality casting

 

[2old]

I'd expect a replacement fork for that level of discrepancy. You might post on MTBR for some "expert" comments.

 

[Hillhater]

Your retailer should be the first place to go.
And also ask RS direct for comment . Any negative response ...hit the social media,...that usually spurrs a reaction.! :wink:
I dont know your retail laws, but down here, a product must be of suitable quality to last a reasonable amount of time in normal use...irrespective of printed warranty periods....Enforced by consumer law.

 

[speedmd]

That looks like Salt or Calcium Chloride from salting the roads in the winter. That's exactly how cheap aluminum looks in the Marine environment.

+1

 

[themadhatter106]

That looks like Salt or Calcium Chloride from salting the roads in the winter. That's exactly how cheap aluminum looks in the Marine environment.

Well I'm not too sure salt could have something to do with it because all of these holes started as bubbles in the paint. Salt can't get on the inside of the aluminum because the fork is sealed and the inside of the lowers is covered in an oil bath. It can't get to aluminum on the outside either because the paint is there. I know that in cars the paint usually starts to bubble because the body is rusting from the inside out. I'm not sure how that happens with an oil bath and in 3 years...

I made an account and posted on mtbr: http://forums.mtbr.com/shocks-suspension/holes-appearing-rox-shocks-front-fork-1009328.html#post12581839

I bought this fork online but it's outside of its 2 year warranty period anyway. Regardless, I will contact SRAM, there is no Rock Shox contact info; they own Rock Shox. The only email I was able to find was sramusa@sram.com. I will give it a try.

I'm going to need to see what SRAM and the people at mtbr say.

 

[speedmd]

Paint is not a perfect seal. It is porous and when too thin not good at all. Powder coat is powder that has to be baked to flow and stick together leaving many little openings in most coatings if not heated enough or applied thick enough. Anyone that deals with aluminum boats and motors in salt water can spot this type of damage and knows it well. Alloy car wheels suffer for this same type of damage here in the north east where calcium and salt are common on roads. Even well painted wheels have issues over time. Washing waxing and Some sacrificial metal foil wraps may help stop this long term on your new forks if you have to ride in winter on roads.

 

[themadhatter106]

Well that sucks. I used to ride a Walmart bike during the winter and the whole bike was cheaper than this fork. The fork on that cheap bike never turned to swiss cheese like this one. Sure, maybe a little surface rust if it got a scratch in the paint. Clean it up and do some touch up painting, good as new!

This fork must be total shit if it corroded holes from salt this quickly.

I emailed the guy from SRAM with a big description of the problem and showing him pics, he responded:

Hi Chris,

Where globally are you located? Our service procedure varies by region, but happy to help get your fork inspected.

Regards,
SRAM USA
http://www.sram.com

Hahahahaha! Yeah sure, like my fork needs an inspection. The damn thing turned in to swiss cheese! No inspection is needed from those pics, what I need is a whole new fork or at least lowers.

I brought it to a SRAM authorized bike mechanic near me, and showed it to him. He didn't have much of a comment besides it looks like someone shot your fork. He said he had never seen anything like that before. He's going to get back to me on the price for new lowers but he said I should email Rock Shox because they usually stand behind their products. When I told him their response he just smiled laughed his ass off.

 

[WoodlandHills]

I am not sure what Rock Shox could have done differently: you didn't expect them to send a new fork to anyone on the internet who emails them a picture of a damaged fork, did you? For all you know, they may have wanted you to take it to an authorized dealer and have them do a warranty inspection. In other words, your buddy could be the one to do the inspection, but now you'll never know.....

I once got a set of new tires for my car by filing a warranty claim with Bridgestone who sent me to a local dealer for the inspection. What they asked you to do is standard procedure for any business. IMHO

 

[themadhatter106]

Well I went back to the shop again to ask about the part and this time the owner was there. He has always been a lot more knowledgeable than the other people that work there. I told him the story and showed him the pictures and he said that he has seen that happen before. He said what probably happened was water got trapped inside and corroded the fork from the inside out and that it was probably from riding in the rain even though I park my bike in the garage water still gets past the seals during rainy day rides.

I took a second look. The area right around the foam ring inside the fork looks the most corroded and pitted out of the whole fork, lower down it looks fine. it makes sense that the area around the foam ring is the worst. I bet what happened was the water went in through the seal and the foam ring absorbed the water like a sponge holding it there and allowing the surrounding area to get badly corroded.

He said he doubted that they even had spare parts for my fork since it was so old, a 2011 model and that I would go through all the time and effort to send it in and they would probably say the corrosion was wear and tear so it wasn't covered even though it corroded a hell of a lot faster and more than a wal-mart suspension fork due to the shitty quality aluminum.

I guess I should be overhauling my fork lowers and seals more than once a year. I also need to be more diligent with oiling the seal area. Since the corrosion is really only near the seal I think it should be fine for riding though.

 

[Hillhater]

Still sounds like dealer/manufacturer avoiding responsibility.
The fact that the shop guy admitted that it has happened before makes it worse.
Imagine what would happen if a suspension arm on a car or motorbike was found to be corroding like that ?
There would be a immediate safety recall, even on a 5 or 10 year old vehicle !
Parts replaced FOC, etc.
Even childrens toys have better buyer protectection laws.
Make sure you create a nice big noise on social media Twitter, Fbook, etc etc. nasty big pictures, make sure the brand name is prominent, shout about the crap customer service etc etc....make them suffer in the sales figures.

 

[speedmd]

We are in the rust belt my friend! We are Not in some fair weathered fairy land. Cars, trucks and bikes get the Swiss cheese look rather quickly in these parts if used on the roads in winter / spring time at all. The use of liquid Calcium on the roads has made things much worse. Play with them near the beach or around tidal pools and it will happen in a matter of days. Fat bike riders that are riding wet beach areas are having issues also.

 

[spinningmagnets]

I think speedmd is on to something. The steel wheel-wells and aluminum wheels of automobiles around here show significant corrosion (Kansas), enough that many people have a second "winter only" car. The state highways use the liquid spray on the roads for de-icing, especially on bridges. Cities typically still use salt and sand, which is cheaper.

As a former hydraulic mechanic, I was shocked to find rust inside a dis-assembled hydraulic cylinder, on parts that are continuously bathed in oil, so...moisture intrusion past seals is something that is surprisingly common. I now work as a water plant operator, and we use hypochlorite, and I can further verify that anything with a form of chlorine in it is very corrosive to just about everything. I just googled a bit, and found this PDF:

"...Aggressive corrosion, caused by new formulations of road ice clearing chemicals, has recently
become a serious maintenance problem for many equipment users. Use of magnesium
chloride- and calcium chloride-based products by certain states is especially associated with
increased incidence of corrosion on vehicles, causing damage in as little as a single winter
season..."

"...the chemicals reportedly can cause significant
damage in as little as a single winter season.
Corrosion on vehicles operating in these areas
has been reported on chrome, aluminum—
even stainless steel..."

IMHO...you should dis-assemble the forks and inspect them. I suspect the aluminum shells are paper-thin now. Whenever you get you forks someday, we should all help design DIY socks over the chrome tubes to keep road chemicals off of the seals

 

[MadRhino]

I believe they are magnesium, and the only possible cause is a casting defect. I don't think this has anything to do with corrosion. It is very possible that no quality control was ever made on those cheap forks

... or they just use the parts that didn't pass the quality test for the expansive DH racing forks. :wink:

 

[gogo]

That sprayed-on brine is slicker than snot and dangerous for 2-wheelers. I wonder if the ingredients that make it stick to the road also make it stick to hydraulic tubes where it then sneaks past the seals?

 

[speedmd]

"Use of magnesium chloride- and calcium chloride"

IMO these should be banned! BTW magnesium is vastly inferior to aluminum in regards to this type of corrosion. If porous, forget about it once wet with these liquid salts.

 

[WoodlandHills]

If you get a replacement, save the old lowers to throw on a bonfire sometime. Nothing like burning magnesium! We used to toss old VW engine cases on midnight beach fires when I was a kid......

 

[themadhatter106]

If you get a replacement, save the old lowers to throw on a bonfire sometime. Nothing like burning magnesium! We used to toss old VW engine cases on midnight beach fires when I was a kid......

Haha, I think my fork is destined for a bonfire soon enough :lol: .


So the owner of the bike shop seemed reluctant to even go through the effort to call Rock Shox and see how much it would cost for the part and even if it was available. He wanted me to contact the seller which was "Xtreme Bike and Sport" through amazon. I looked on their website and they don't even have an email only a phone number. I kind of feel like calling and asking them to help me with a warranty or parts lookup on a fork I bought nearly 5 years ago would be a waste of time, just my gut feeling.

I decided to look online and sure enough the lowers I need are available: http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-RockSho...231619?hash=item2a52e2f383:g:Rr4AAOSw9r1WBDxf. It's wicked expensive at $140 for just the fork lowers. This was the cheapest I could find. The whole fork new cost $200! I just want to ride my bike goddammit without worrying about the whole fork snapping off from being Swiss cheese!

Maybe I should just buy a new fork. I mean I can buy a whole new Rock Shox Tora from Taiwan for $100 free shipping!

 

[themadhatter106]

So I know that some forks have dust seals, foam rings and oil seals. My currnet fork only has the dust seals and foam rings. Do you think getting a more expensive fork with the oil seals would help the problem of water and salt getting into my fork?

Can anyone recommend a cheap but rugged fork?

 

[LewTwo]

Can anyone recommend a cheap but rugged fork?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B017RLCWIC
I could not resist

 

[themadhatter106]

I want a rugged fork because I have my batteries mounted low on my front fork with a rack.

I know I don't want an air fork because I ride a lot of miles and the last thing I need to worry about is that thing leaking air.

I'd like 32mm stanchions which starts with the recon forks but they are only selling air recons for some reason. The other ones all seem to have DH style axles which aren't compatible with my hub and more importantly my front rack. The Silver 30 is appealing with its $125 price.

But then again maybe me of all people should be saying frock you Rock Shox. Manitou Match is 32mm and coil but I can't find what the lowers are made of. If its aluminum that would be a big advantage since apparently it holds up a lot better in corrosive environments.