Fork Upgrade
 

My wife and I have an older Boulder TSL 26 tandem that came with a Marzocchi DH3 fork with 100mm of travel. The current for is leaking pretty bad and I'm told there is no kits available to repair it. I got a killer deal on an 05 Marzocchi 66VF with 150mm of travel. Do you think the difference in travel will cause any problems?

I went from 120 to 135mm and now have 150mm travel forks with no noticable difference in handling. Only thing to think of -are Heavier weight springs available for tandem use, as this may be the limiting factor.

Looking around at other threads, my concern is if there will be a potential for the head tube to be damaged beacuse the angle will be different. We ride mainly cross country but to too rough..

4 year old Dale MT and we do ride aggressively- no problems so far. That aggressive is aggressive and some of the hits we have made would have damaged a weaker frame- but see if you have gussets under the head tube to down tube.

I'll have to give that a look tonight.

Nope no gussets on the head tube. I put the fork on tonight and it really jacked up the front end by about 4 inches.

You're better off looking for a Marzocchi DJ instead. Then you can send me the 66VF. :D
We've got a DJ1 for our tandem, but I haven't installed it yet.

Yes, that's the way I'm leaning right now. I should have put more thought into it, but the 66VF was the same price as the DJ1. I didn't realize that the 66VF was such a honkin big fork. Are you realy interested in it?

You can PM me and let me know what kind of great deal you got. I've got a dual crown that I'm taking off my tandem now, but since I moved to Utah, I can see where another single with a lot of travel might come in handy.

So.. how is the ride with the 66vf or DJ1? I've been thinking of purchasing a dj3.

I'm thinking of purchasing a 66VF :) for another project, but I haven't installed the DJ1 yet because our stuff has not arrived yet. I hope to be able to report on it by this weekend, unless there's a lot of snow.

After talking with Alex at MTBTandems, I'm going to exchange my 66VF for a DJ1. I can report on it after I get it installed.

Is he doing a swap for you, or is it still for sale? By the way, Alex knows everything.

No, I didn't get it from Alex, I purchased from www.jensonusa.com for $299.99. Are you interested? I PM'd you a couple of days ago, but not sure if I did it right.

Bolton2160

I finally received my '05 DJ1, and I finally installed it on my mountain tandem. It seems a little soft with our team weight being 350+, according to the manual the max preload is 15psi and I assume that if I go over that, I may blow out the seals. Will stiffer springs make a big difference?

Thanks,
Bolton2160

We've decided that buying a house right now is more important than building another bike (I think we got 3 inches of snow today) so I'll have to pass for now. I probably got your PM, and didn't have time to respond right away, then it got bumped off the page, since I get a few as a mod.

About the springs - I'd get the stiffer ones, but maybe ride with the current ones for a bit first. Someone previously mentioned that the DJ series were a bit flexy compared to a dual crown, and just from the install, I can see that's pretty true. But we're looking to make our tandem less aggressive anyway, so I'll have to wait and see how it performs.

It looks pretty wimpy compared to the other fork:

http://www.t-mobilepictures.com/phot...a5bkidpcvju2oo

Yes, I'll probably ride it for awhile to see how it feels, my only concern is that we sag down about 1/2 of our travel. So far it feels really smooth.

Compared to the old fork, (96 Marzocchi DH3), this fork looks pretty monster to me. The 66VF was a really monster looking fork.

Thanks,
Bolton2160

Hey, I recently traded in a Ventana El Conquistador that had a DJ1 from 03. The DJ1 is the best shock for the bike and you can get Heavy springs if needed. I now have the fork on a Turner 5-Spot and its still working perfectly. My new fork is a 888 mounted to a Custom Ventana frame with full wrapping headset gussets. It will be in Moab,Ut the first week of October.

We've got the 03 DJ1. It just seems to flex a lot, but I still haven't ridden with it. That's just my impression after installing it.

Ummmm .... flex on a thru-axle DJ? Funny ....... OK, in comparison to a double-crown fork it will be more flexible, that's for sure!

@Bolton2160: we are a 290lbs team and run something like 8 psi in our DJ. When I put the pressure in that the manual recommends for a 300 lbs rider, it hardly compressed at all :( Per importer's instructions we lowered the pressure. And even if you blow the seals you can still ride it because of the steel springs.

Ok, I'll be more specific. When I grab the front brake and push and pull on the bike, I can feel the fork "Give" a little. I'm curious to see how it performs when we go for an actual ride.

I also noticed a small amount of movement when grabbing the front brake. I can't tell if it's the fork flexing or if the movement is coming from the headset.

Is it dificult to change the springs? Or should I take it to a shop?

The front/back movement is typical for suspension forks in general: by definition there is a certain amount of play between the stanchions and the lower legs. Try this out on a lighter fork like a Rock Shox SID and you'd almost be frightened about the movement. In practice you don't notice this and the DJ takes big hits smoothly in our experience. Please try it out first and fiddle with the air pressure before you start changing springs. These changes can quite easily be done at home, check the manual for details. There is also another way of influencing a fork's behaviour which is through a lighter/heavier-weight oil.
Perhaps it's wise to search the Web for clues on this - there are so many enthousiasts out there who have already "beaten the path" for you :) Also, Usenet discussion groups like rec.bicycles.tech might prove useful.

The fork sags a bit when I sit on it, so it should settle nicely with both of us. And it feels very progressive. I guess I should shut up until we actually have time to take it for a ride. :D

How much pressure are you running?? We sag down about 40mm with the two of us on.