As luck would have it the next work order up was an old Rock Shox Mag 21 from around 1995. This brought back some old memories of my early years of working in a shop. This one had a lot of corrosion but we wanted to save it because it was custom painted to match the bike.
Here it is in all it's former glory!
I started by applying Kroil to all the bolts and the main oil seals and let it soak in. Then I started slowly and carefully removing the external hardware.
Unfortunately one of the bolts broke
The tool marks on this crown tell me that someone has worked on this fork before me and that someone was not very familiar with servicing this fork.
There's a large snap ring that has to be removed in order to pull the stanchion and oil seals out.
You used to be able to take these old forks all apart.
Meanwhile B Rose was working on a Manitou Dorado on the next bench over.
Does anyone remember using the old basket ball needle to inflate your fork? I used one to drain the oil while depressurizing each leg.
Then it was time to pull the stanchions and seals. You clamp the stanchion using a radius jaw and unthread that two piece gold and silver seal puller using a 36mm and a 32mm headset wrench.
You have to be careful that the stanchion doesn't slide up and out of the radius jaw.
If all goes well the internals pop out together.
While trying to concentrate on all of this I had to help B Rose supervise Michael. You see, Michael hangs out at Shockspital so much that everyone thinks he is B Rose' son. B Rose figures that he might as well put him to work.We're not sure if we should pay Michael or send his parents a bill for day care.
I was skeptical that Michael was qualified for the job.
Anyway, back to the old mag 21. If things don't go well the stanchion pulls out but the seals and bushings remain in the fork.
Oh yeah, this is Derek.
He is putting elastomers on RT Rybak's Proflex.
I had to remove the Mag 21 crown/steerer assembly in order to try to remove the rest of that broken bolt. There was a lot of corrosion on the steerer tube.
But I polished it up.
A couple nice looking packages showed up which meant more work.
Michael did a nice job assembling B Rose' new work bench.
Unfortunately that old mag 21 could not be saved but I had fun reliving my glory days and seeing all the fun stuff that goes on here. Luckily RST still sells a fork with a 1' threadless steerer and brake bosses. It just won't match anymore.
