[Hoiho]

Drilled my Damper Rods today, not had a chance to do a test run yet.  👍

Nice. What are you using for 'seating' the emulators? Having a good seal between the damper rod and the emulator valve is as important as drilling...

[Bibbage]

I had to remove the jointing piece from the damper rod as could not get the emulator to seat, then drop it in attached to the emulator. 👍

[EJJKC]

I was watching a Doorman Diaries video …. The one where he added 20mm to the dampening rod so he could get another inch of travel. But wouldn’t travel be dependent on the springs?…. My question is did he actually get another inch of travel or did he just move the “travel” up an inch

[Kranis]

I was watching a Doorman Diaries video …. The one where he added 20mm to the dampening rod so he could get another inch of travel. But wouldn’t travel be dependent on the springs?…. My question is did he actually get another inch of travel or did he just move the “travel” up an inch

Can't see that you got a reply for this one. The answer is no. The travel is limited by the damping rod, not the spring. The fork is bottoming under compression when the upper fork tube hits the bottom of the fork leg. The fork is bottoming during rebound when the upper fork tube is stopped by the rebound spring which is held down by the top of the damping rod. So, in essence, to ge more travel, you need a longer rod. However, to balance the distribution of stroke between compression and rebound, other modifications may be necessary, notably shorten the spacer/lessen preload.

/Kranis

[CPJS]

If you lengthen the damping rod would that not shorten the stroke?
You will have reduced the distance that the fork could compress yet the fork will rest in a position nearer the topping out point.

[Kranis]

If you lengthen the damping rod would that not shorten the stroke?
You will have reduced the distance that the fork could compress yet the fork will rest in a position nearer the topping out point.

No, but it is difficult for me to understand how you think a standard fork works. Maximum compression has nothing to do with the spring - it will never compress fully (bind). The travel of the upper fork tube ends when it hits the bottom of the slider or fork leg (the part attached to the wheel) OR when it tries to blast past the top of the damper rod. The full stroke is about 11 cm, which is about a third of the length of the spring.

/Kranis

[Kranis]

On a tangent, ”pre-load” is an unfortunate misnomer when talking about forks under load since it does not increase the force on the spring when the fork is actually loaded (by the weight of the bike and rider). It just changes the upper contact point of the spring and adjusts the position of the upper fork tube under load (sag). Changing the length of the spacer tube does exactly the same thing. The only way to make sense of ”pre-load” as ”increasing the load on the spring” is when it is unloaded (before any load). When you increase the length of the damper rod, you increase the pre-load from below by changing the position of the lower contact point of the spring (which is connected to the lower fork leg), thereby increasing the compression stroke as the upper fork tube is lifted upwards (if and only if it is loaded). The rebound stroke will remain the same and in order to distribute the increased stroke evenly between compression (downward) and rebound (upward), we need to lower preload from above by shortening the spacer, get a shorter spring or use our preload adjusters. Phew.

/Kranis