I pulled the Fox 34 Grip fork (Part Number: 910-20-400) apart on Windy’s PinkFive this weekend. She’s a lighter rider and isn’t super aggressive. Because of this, I wanted to lighten up the damping to open the fork up for her. She wasn’t getting a lot of travel out of the fork.
I removed a shim from the HS compression and HS rebound and put some lighter oil in. It helped a bit. The fork is now very active at the beginning of travel. The fork still has some issue with being too progressive for her. This isn’t really Fox’s fault. They designed the fork for all riders and she is on the light side. I’m pretty sure that as she grows as a rider she will get more out of the fork and I can back up some of the changes that I’ve made.
These are some of the first images that I’ve seen on the new Grip damper. It’s an interesting design. A self bleeding sealed damper where the overflow oil goes to lubricate the fork leg. You need a 22.6mm shaft clamp to take the cartridge apart. I don’t know who makes those for sale. It’s an odd size. I made my own that also has 27.2, 30.9, and 31.6mm clamps for working on dropper seatposts.
One issue that I encountered was that Fox specified 40cc of oil for the damper when it clearly should be approximately 65cc. The damper felt like a disaster when I took it out of the fork, like the air was pushing oil out of it. When I was done and installed it it seemed to be working properly. This may be because of the care I took putting it together and slowly bleeding it or that I put the proper amount of oil in it, both, or just that things were wrong. I’ll know more about this issue when I next take it apart.
Overall I’m hopeful for this fork. The parts seem very well made. Fox has finally fully abandoned designing forks around ATF fluid, so there are lots of shims to play with. The bleed system also seems nice in theory. I do wish it was a bladder but they must have cost cutting reasons for this. The cost on the Grip system is very nice.
Numbers:
Damper side: 40cc’s 025-03-023, Suspension Fluid, 5wt, Teflon Infused
Spring side: 10cc’s 025-03-010, AM, FOX Bath Oil, 20 WT Gold
http://www.ridefox.com/help.php?m=bike&id=778
Valving:
Compression: 4 x 13.6x6mm x .005″ (removed one)
Rebound: 3 x 17x6mm x .0065″ (removed one)
Fluid:
Changed to Redline Extralight (blue)
65cc in damper, 20cc lube
Air:
65 psi. 75psi was a little much at this point.
The volume spacers were already completely removed.
Still too progressive
Travel:
Travel was already extended to 150mm
