I need to get the oil in my 04 Marzocchi Marathon SL changed soon so I'm looking for a shop that knows how to service this fork without fmucking things up. Any suggestions would be great.

I'm in Seattle btw, so a great shop in Yakima or something isn't particulary useful to me.

Go to the Downhill Zone in the U District.. on the ave. They know what they're doing.. and they're a Marzocchi dealer.

I need to get the oil in my 04 Marzocchi Marathon SL changed soon so I'm looking for a shop that knows how to service this fork without fmucking things up. Any suggestions would be great.


I second the Downhill Zone. Great guys. I do 99% of the work on my bike but for that 1 time out of a hundred that I've needed work, I've taken it there. They really know there stuff. No mucking anything up there.

I second the Downhill Zone. Great guys. I do 99% of the work on my bike but for that 1 time out of a hundred that I've needed work, I've taken it there. They really know there stuff. No mucking anything up there.

Thanks, I'm familiar with the Downhill Zone but I've never actually taken my bike there. I'll check them out.

Out of curiosity Crash_FLMB do you work on your own suspension components? I also do most of the maintanence on my bike, but with this new fork I can't find any tech info from Marzocchi regarding how to safely take it apart to change the oil and I don't want to go blowing the warranty.

Yep. I've rebuilt my Manitou on my Sugar a few times. I helped a friend rebuild his '02 Marz Z1. I have the '03 Z1 FR but I haven't had to do anything with it yet. Usually about once a year I rebuild them. A year is coming up in May so that's when I'll start thinking of rebuilding it.

A friend of mine has the same fork and he just rebuilt it. He's Largextracheese. I know the service manual can be found here:

http://www.marzocchi.com/template/listSPAManuals.asp?IDFolder=126&LN=UK&Sito=mtb

If you do most of your work, then you should be able to do the job yourself. It's pretty simple as Marz has great tech manuals. Just follow that word for word and all should be good. But if you're not comfortable, then I'd just take it to the pros. You'd have it back from them in a day or two.

We're riding Tokul tomorrow at 9AM if iterested.

Later,
Crash

I second the Downhill Zone. Great guys. I do 99% of the work on my bike but for that 1 time out of a hundred that I've needed work, I've taken it there. They really know there stuff. No mucking anything up there.

I've had them do work on my 2000 Jr. T. Get the manager or the owner to do the work. the rest of the guys are nice guys, but they are also a bunch of pot smoking shop rats. Still, I highly recomend them

However, one of the great things about owning a 'Zocchi is how easy they are to work on. If you do a search for "marathon" in the suspension forum, you'll be able to find a dude that's practically got every detail of rebuilding a marathon on his website in real terms(although you canbe download a pdf of the tech manual from Marzocchi directly).

I've got the address for the guy's site at work and can get it to you on Monday. If you can't find it, email me and I'll get it to you.

Cheers,
EB

P.S. Very sorry for the late notice ya'll, but I'm heading up to Fromme and either Seymour or the Woodlot tomorrow morning (actually today) to ride. I would've posted it earlier had it been finalized.

The sight is here:

http://myweb.cableone.net/rkindig/marz_marathon_s.html

Changing fork oil is VERY easy, especially compared to bleeding hydraulic brakes, lacing a wheel, or repairing or even building a frame, all of which is done every day at some local shops. I would just take it to whatever shop you like best (Long as it's not REI)
I'd take it to gregg's greenlake if you don't want to do it yourself.

However, one of the great things about owning a 'Zocchi is how easy they are to work on. If you do a search for "marathon" in the suspension forum, you'll be able to find a dude that's practically got every detail of rebuilding a marathon on his website in real terms(although you canbe download a pdf of the tech manual from Marzocchi directly).

I've got the address for the guy's site at work and can get it to you on Monday. If you can't find it, email me and I'll get it to you.

Cheers,
EB

P.S. Very sorry for the late notice ya'll, but I'm heading up to Fromme and either Seymour or the Woodlot tomorrow morning (actually today) to ride. I would've posted it earlier had it been finalized.

Jeff Mills, the assistant service manager at Aurora Cycle, is by far the best suspension mechanic in all of Seattle with over 15 years of experience servicing shocks and forks.

Per mind "enhancing" herbs, Jeff's brain is fully functional and not exposed to such things (not that there's anything wrong with that). A nice, single-malt scotch goes far with him, however.

I need to get the oil in my 04 Marzocchi Marathon SL changed soon so I'm looking for a shop that knows how to service this fork without fmucking things up. Any suggestions would be great.

The sight is here:

http://myweb.cableone.net/rkindig/marz_marathon_s.html

Changing fork oil is VERY easy, especially compared to bleeding hydraulic brakes, lacing a wheel, or repairing or even building a frame, all of which is done every day at some local shops. I would just take it to whatever shop you like best (Long as it's not REI)
I'd take it to gregg's greenlake if you don't want to do it yourself.

I actually came across that site already. He details the coil sprung version, I have the air version of the marathon so I figure things are probably different enough that I could screw something up if I tried to follow his instructions. The 04 Marz. tech manuals are actually very vague. It actually instructs you to take it to an authorized dealer for oil change. Go figure.

It's basically the same- not having coils just saves you a few steps.

The only trick is, to make sure you let all the air out before you do anything! And, you might want to do some research to see what people are running for oil height, which would be different between coil and air.

I've owned and overhauled the following marzocchi forks, and they've all been basically the same process:
Z1 FR (coil)
MX-pro eta (air 1 side, coil other)
MXR (coil)
Z3 air
Atom bomb 80

I actually came across that site already. He details the coil sprung version, I have the air version of the marathon so I figure things are probably different enough that I could screw something up if I tried to follow his instructions. The 04 Marz. tech manuals are actually very vague. It actually instructs you to take it to an authorized dealer for oil change. Go figure.