What do you think of when I say Fork or Shock Refresh? New oil or new seals? Maybe cleaning out some dirt? But there is another VERY import part of refreshes!
Inspection of internals is what I consider the most important part of a service. Many times when a set of forks are opened or a shock is disassembled everything looks normal. Bushings are perfect, chrome tubes are nick free, life is good. But every once in a while I come across something that isn’t so good.
Above is a pair of Traxxion Dynamics Omni Buffers that broke. This is a VERY rare and unusual situation! But the right one broke into two pieces and fortunately the function of the fork was unaffected. The left one is the bigger concern; the small pieces could have made their way into orifices and clog the rebound and compression circuits. The rider rode on these forks for 24 months and never felt or knew there was a problem. He was lucky that his forks didn’t have a catastrophic failure while on the track. The thing to remember is Traxxion, Ohlins, Race Tech, K-Tech etc. ALL make great, reliable products, but sometimes things happen and components break. Routine service allows us to catch these on the workbench, and not in the ditch!