Beware of previous owners

[Sebulba]

Some of them can be REALLY stupid.

Like one of my bike's previous owners, who wanted to firm up the front end. So they dropped in some springs, the only problem was that the replacement springs were slightly thicker than the forks' interior diameter. The result:



This happened when you dropped the springs down the tube. Instead of dropping down to the bottom, they only went in about 10 cm/4", then friction stops them. The guy at the shop said he tried to remove them for a few hours, before he could pull them out, so strong was the friction between the springs and the shock tube. I think waht happened was, the springs compressed with the first bump, then friction kept them compressed, so, no more front suspension for me.

I've changed them with a set of stock springs and 15W oil, and I'm happy to report it's much nicer to ride, less nervous in corners and way easier on my wrists (I broke my right snowboarding 1 1/2 years ago, so the less crashy, the better).

Also, this was my left fork cap:



The photo may not be very good, but the thread was stripped off the entire length of the cap. A perfect example of why, if you start to crossthread the fork caps, you STOP THE HELL AND TRY AGAIN!