I believe my dual air revelations which have suddenly developed reduced travel and no lockout/comprsession have a problem with an oil seal? Has anyone else resolved this problem at home? If so where did you get the kit and how tricky is it, I am a fairly competent bike mechanic.

When mine did that it was because the damping cartridge had self destructed after a fast run over roots & drop offs

It’ll be the damping oil leaking into the lower leg. It doesn’t take that much to lose lockout and then shortly after you’ll notice the travel reducing.

The last two times I’ve had this issue I’ve just disassembled them & reassembled them. Be careful if you don’t buy a service kit that you don’t distort the circlips too much or you’ll have to replace them. TFT tuned do a service kit and you can use motorbike fork oil which works out better value for money.

Make sure you download the tech manual from the SRAM website & read through it several times so you are clear what you need to do.

It’s pretty straight forward.

Look – I’m no technician, but I had something similar (but it could have been different) and had a chat with the guys at my LBS. What they suggested seems to have worked – and they said if it didn’t then maybe it was a leak, but it was worth trying this first.

Might be best to check with someone else who knows, but I *think* what I did was:

1: take the air out of the +ive and -ive chambers
2: put the right amount of air into the +ive
3: when putting air into the -ive, stop just as it’s starting to sag down.

I did this on my work stand with the lockout unlocked. As I took air out of the chambers, the fork seemed to get its travel back, and sat at the correct height (100mm, when it was wound in, 130mm when wound out)

I now have full travel – and am very happy! They’re old(ish) dual air, U Turn Revs – and have had one service back at Fisher, but I was getting worried they’d died or were going to start costing serious money, but this has made a difference.

Like I say – if someone else with a bit more knowledge than me can give this method an ok then it’s got to be worth a punt before getting new seals etc. The only tool you need is your shockpump.

Best of luck – but please get what I’ve suggested checked out first! 🙂

As gonetothehills has suggested, you should probably check you have a leak before disassembling

You can do this by deflating the -ve chamber, then the +ve chamber before compressing the fork. If it doesn’t compress pretty much all the way to the crown, then u can be pretty sure it’s being hampered by too much oil in the lowers (oil from the damper system).

Have done all that fellas pretty convinced its the damping seals as is bottoming out half way through travel and lockout isnt working at all.

Cheers

I had exactly the same on my 2008 Dual Air Revelations. I sent them to loco tuning and got them serviced. It cost money, but now they’re as good as new.

My 08 Reba’s have just done he same thing , lockout started playing up and then the travel has reduced. I know it’s the lower damping seal that has failed. It’s a simple enough job with the right tools (fixed a mates Recon that had the same problem).

As mentioned above all the ‘how to fix it’ details are on the Sram site , just be clean and methodical if you decide to fix them yourself.

How old are they? A lot of the faulty damping cartridges are a recognised fault (at one time, some didn’t even make it to the workshopshop floor without p*ssing their internals into their packaging) and will be replaced under warranty.

ok dog walked and into the garage, took all the air out and cycled the fork a few times, pumped back up and all is ok full 140mm travel…one thing i noticed though whilst playing around with the pressures is that when the -ve chamber is pumped to 135psi and every time i checked it again it had fallen to 100psi no more no less everytime..this is a bit weird ?

still i have full travel so im pretty happy.

one more question, is there a way of making the air fork a bit more plush? it always feels a bit ‘spiky’ no matter what rebound setting its on…

edit, wrong thread..!!! im a numpty!!