I thought I'd start a thread to post tips on the 50 Zokes open chamber forks, kind of like the jetting data base threads. Here is a little start from my own experience. I weigh 210 lbs W/O gear. I re-sprung the rear of my 09 WR250 with a 5.6 spring and felt the fork springs were close the way they came. I disassembled them and found hard waxy grease (like a high temp wheel bearing grease) around the valving especially at the bottom of the fork. I cleaned the valves with brake clean and at the advise of a reputable suspension tuner I replaced the fork oil with 10w. His reason for 10w was that the Zokes have some internal leaks and 10w would minimize the affect of this. I believe the waxy grease is responsible for the occasional blast through the dampening and the unpredictable kick due to a dab of grease getting hung in the valving. So today the heat let up today and I got out for an hour to ride before the downpour of rain and I can say that this helped the forks quite a bit. My old stock settings were; 5w stock oil which looked good but needed changed due to break in. oil level was 110 mm compression dampening 18 clicks in rebound dampening 12 clicks in fork height in triple clamps even with 2nd groove New settings; 10w Belray oil level 130mm compression damp 11 clicks rebound damp 12 clicks fork height 2nd groove I think there is room for improvement but this was a real help and is very rideable. I will have to ride some more and play with the clickers some more but right now it feels to me like a progressive spring might be the final piece to the puzzle, by making the 1st part of the travel a little softer to absorb the roots and little kickers a little better but as it is now it soaks up the heavy stuff in the middle really well.
Great idea but can we do it as a zokes, tips and tricks? That way we can capture 45's and others. Vinduro did an awesome posting a while back with setting up suspension and maybe he can slide it over here or slide this up in the tech reference section?
Here is a helpful video of a fork similar to the Zoke as far as seal and oil replacement are concerned. Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/user/RockyMountainATVMC#p/c/A14890CE79ACFAAC/24/Y43k1qFVGW4 Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/user/RockyMountainATVMC#p/c/A14890CE79ACFAAC/23/C9ICr-DOmdk
I found the same goop in mine when I replaced the seals. I went back with Bel-Ray 7wt and the forks felt like I put honey in them. Out went the Bel-Ray and I now have Honda 5wt. Haven't ridden it yet.
Part of the reason the front may have felt like honey is because the rear shock spring is too soft. I thought my forks would never work until I switched to the 5.6 spring on the rear. It put more weight to the front so instead of choppering out and being hard to turn it's balanced now and the front end is tunable.
I run 0 wt in my forks. Open or closed! 10wt! Wow. Internal leaks? Iv'e had nothing but GOOD luck with Zokes. I revalve ALWAYS!!!
The purpose of this thread is to share what works for you. I didn't mean to give the impression that I was dissatisfied with my Zokes in fact I'm not complaining at all and after I finished with the above changes They work almost as well as my GasGas with the LTR re-valved Ohlins front and back. I'll bet Les could make my Zokes better than they are but currently they are very rideable and after an hour of logs and single track I was smiling for the rest of the day. As far as the internal leaks go he did mention the need to lap in some of the valving during the re-valve to correct this. Some may not be as in need as others and lapping may be a formality for them. I closely inspected mine while apart and cleaning and found them to look pretty good.
Yes mine was 5.4 from the factory. Keep in mind that when you increase spring rate it will require more rebound dampening to slow the return of the stiffer spring.
