Hey. At the end of my ride I ended up getting some scratches on my stanchions(photo when I get home).
They don’t seem very deep but they cover a good inch or so up the side of the left one.
Should I be worried?? Can it be fixed without costing an arm and a leg??
scratches could damage seals and bushings over time but there’s not much to be done about them. In open bath forks they can cause a small amount of oil to leak out. If they are really rough or protruding you could verrrry carefully sand them down smooth, They don’t look terrible in the photo and will probably cause no noticeable issues.
You can smooth it out a bit, but those don’t look too bad. Get some 800-1000 grit sandpaper and get the stanchion wet. Very gently sand the affected area vertically until you can’t feel the edges any longer. If there are holes, you can use a bit of clear nail polish to fill them in. Coat it lightly, let it dry, and wet sand it again. Rinse and repeat until it’s smoother. It will never be perfect, but it’s not the end of the world. I scratched the kashima on my 36 on the damn bike rack, and this technique worked–I don’t have any leakage issues or seal damage.
Nice, that’s good to know. This happened right after the ride so they haven’t been compressed into the fork yet so I will examine it a bit closer tomorrow. I didn’t feel any burs or anything so that’s a good start.
I got so used to my old Judy’s with the stanchion boot covers so I didn’t need to worry nearly as much and it was a lot hard to actually get a scratch on them
heh–Judy’s performed like crap, so it’s a trade off!
