I'm doing a service on my daughters RST coil fork on her GT LaBomba, we can't afford to upgrade to a new fork and can't find anything suitable on Facebook at the moment anyway.
Would it be okay to use molykote dielectric grease in the fork rather than slickoleum?
Also, the preload tensioners, I've taken them out and I'm turning them but they don't seem to do anything. Are they meant to move? I'm thinking they might be jammed.
If we were to upgrade her fork, I see it's got a straight steerer but the bottom cup is bigger than the top, can a normal tapered steerer go straight in?
by Agitated_Climate1749
4 Comments
Those forks are just *barely* a step above disposable. There is very little you can do to service or improve them. All you can really do is prevent them from eventually becoming rigid forks in a lot of cases.
I’m not sure about that grease, but slickoleum, SRAM butter, slick honey, etc are most ideal. However, almost any grease is better than none.
Do you have a bike co-op near you? Might be able to score a replacement for cheap. I second the opinion that these are hardly serviceable.
The current model of that bike seems to have a tapered headset that would work for any tapered fork. Same as the pro model that comes with a tapered fork as far as I can tell. You would need a new crown race would be my guess as the straight fork will have an adapter race installed.
Long term your best option is to look for a new fork. In theory your fork is serviceable but in practice that could be very different, I’m not sure there is any parts or service back up. If someone brought that fork in to me for a service it’s not a job I would accept because once you consider labour the cost for service would exceed its value.