- Stanchion tubes are the upper
tubes on suspension forks,
or the upper legs,
and they're quite prone
to gettin' scratched
from flying debris, bikes
leaning against each other,
and even crashing and stuff.
Now, what you don't want is
a scratch with a burr in it,
it's gonna damage the seals
and of course deteriorate
and get worse over time.
So it's gonna cost you more money,
as you will need to replace
the whole upper CSU crown steering unit.
So this is a workaround
fix on how to remove
those scratches from your stanchions.
So firstly, I'm just gonna
show you a dropper post
that actually, I think, is
past the point of repair.
You can see it's got some
pretty heavy damage on here.
Basically this was stuck
in the back of a van
with another bike, just
rubbing up against it.
So that is pretty much fit for the bin,
so this upper tube will
need to be replaced.
And the reason for that is
it's gonna damage the seal,
because it's so rough.
Every time it passes it,
it's gonna damage that seal.
You're gonna get problems
with air leakage, oil leakage,
and of course wearing the
bushes out on the inside.
So this is something that
really can't be done at home.
I could do a workaround and
get a few more weeks out of it,
but really, that's gonna
be a new tube on that.
And that's what you don't want to happen
to any of your bike parts,
so please take care when
you're storing your bikes,
when you're putting them on bike racks,
puttin' 'em in an uplift van, chairlifts,
anytime like that where they're likely
to rub against another bike.
In this case here, I've
got the fork of my KN,
and it's just got a little nick
taken out the stanchion tube here.
It's not the worst nick, but
I can feel it quite badly.
So I'm just gonna show you how to prevent
that getting worse, and
I'll be able to keep riding
for quite some time on it.
Okay, so you're gonna
need some kit for the job.
So first up, you're gonna
want some rubber gloves.
You're gonna need some disc brake cleaner
in order to prep the side of the fork.
You're gonna want some very,
very fine diamond tip files.
You can get these quite
cheaply from places like
Maplin, Tandy, Radio Shack,
any sort of electronics
store or hardware store.
These ones cost about $6, about five quid,
somethin' like that.
You'll need some metal
polish, good ol' Autosol,
it's the sort of standard
stuff you see in car shops.
Now you're gonna need
something to act as a filler.
Now some people use epoxy resin for this,
which is a really good solution,
but you don't have to
go as full on as that.
You can do this with a
decent quality nail varnish.
It dries rock hard, but
you need to make sure
it dries completely before
you work it smooth afterwards.
And then you're gonna need some
very, very fine emery paper.
We're talking like 1200
grit, something like that.
Something literally just to polish up.
This is not to actually
sand anything down.
And of course, you're
gonna need a damaged fork
in order to work on.
Okay, so in this case
there's two little nicks
just taken out the stanchion tube
on the right leg of the fork here.
Not quite sure when this happened,
but it's annoying, the fact it's happened.
The fork works perfectly well,
but I just wanna make
sure it stays that way.
So what you're looking for is
to feel the actual sharp
burr on the edge of it,
and that tends to happen
when the metal on the top
just gets moved out of the way.
And what you're lookin'
to do with your file
is to just take the edge off the burr.
But don't go too far,
'cause you don't wanna add any sort of
more scratching to the stanchion area.
It's a very fine job,
just to rub this down.
Just take a little bit of care.
And you might notice
that I've taken the fork
off the bike for this, it
just makes it a lot easier.
You don't have to do it,
but it's quite a precise job
so you wanna make sure
you don't mess it up.
And already, that's starting
to feel a little bit better.
So the aim of this, obviously,
is not to get it back to
sort of a new condition,
it's just to make it usable
without actually damaging
the fork further.
So, what we're tryin' to
do is take that burr off,
which we've just done in step one,
just to smooth over the scratch,
and then to fill it, basically.
Now once it's filled, you
wanna just level that filler,
and then just give it some
polish, with the metal polish.
And basically then, it will
feel like a normal stanchion
when it's passing past the seals.
That is your aim.
So, this stage, I'm just
gonna carefully spray
a bit of brake cleaner, only
a little bit, just on here.
And just take the edge off.
Make sure it's nice and smooth.
You don't need to go too far.
I mean, the metal polish is good
for bringing this back again,
but this is literally just to make sure
the edges are smooth as possible.
And then, take care to get,
make sure the brake cleaner doesn't go
too far near your seals.
You know, you're gonna give the fork
a clean afterwards anyway,
but you don't have to go too far with it.
But that's pretty good.
It's got quite a good feel to it,
so I'm pretty much ready now
to get my filler in there.
In this case, it's just nail varnish.
Nice and simple.
So I'm using nail varnish for this step.
Some people like to use epoxy resin,
which you can get in grey,
you can get in black,
you can get it in different finishes.
Obviously this is just clear, this stuff.
If you're bothered about
the colour of your fork,
then you can do this as a work around.
I'm not, I'm purely about the function,
to make sure it continues working,
so I'm quite happy with the
cheap and cheerful nail varnish.
So, I'm gonna go quite liberal here,
because I'm gonna smooth
this down afterwards.
And something that's
really important to note
is that you must leave it
until it's completely dry.
If you don't, the next stage,
when you go to sort of polish this up,
you're actually gonna
pull it straight back out
the leg again.
So leave this until it's
absolutely rock hard
before you move on to the next step.
Now that the nail varnish, or your filler,
if you're using resin or anything,
has completely hardened,
again emphasise the point,
leave it overnight if need be,
if you're not sure.
Make sure it's fully hardened
and then takin' that really
1200 grit emery paper,
just wanna sort of smooth it out
until it feels like it's basically
part of that stanchion tube.
Just as best as you can, just work it in.
Take your time,
and you'll find you're about
to get a really smooth finish,
and you'll barely even know
that the hole was there to start with.
And all that remains,
once that is fully smooth,
is to get the metal
polish on their afterwards
and buff the whole area up.
And you'll be quite surprised
what good finish you can get.
Okay, so now that this is just filed down,
it's nice and smooth,
it's time to get the
metal polish on there.
Just give the whole area a nice buff up
to make sure it's nice, smooth,
and it's got good finish on it.
Don't need to go too crazy,
but give it a nice, nice buff around here,
and it will start lookin' a lot better.
Okay, so that is the job
done, that is nice and smooth,
it's gonna pass back through the seals
without hindering them.
Of course the scratch isn't covered up,
you can visually still see it there.
If you're that bothered about it,
you could colour in, you
could've used a different colour
sort of filler in there.
I'm quite content with this.
I'm just gonna give it a nice cleanup
with some silicon spray.
Make sure there's no
sort of bits from filing
anywhere around the seals.
Generally give it a good ol' clean,
and then it gets put back on the bike.
Okay, so there we are,
we've effectively just patched
up a stanchion scratch here.
Of course, you don't need to fill it in
if it's just a minor little scratch.
The important factor
is to remove the burr.
A little scratch and indent on there's
not gonna harm the fork,
although, of course, dirt
and mud can get in there.
It's more about gettin' that burr off
and makin' it as smooth as possible
so it just passes the fork seals nicely.
So hopefully this video
has been useful for you,
and of course, don't
forget, you can do this
on a dropper seat post as well.
It's exactly the same principle.
So for a couple more useful videos,
click down here if you wanna see
Olly Wilkins' Focus Jam pro bike.
It's a really cool bike that's done
with Blake quite recently.
And if you wanna find
out how to deep clean
your transmission and drive
chain, click down here.
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