I remember this question coming up before, whether it was possible to adjust the travel on these forks. There was no certain answer and the best I got from Fox was that I needed to purchase a new assembly for the left leg (air spring side). Quoted at $30. Not bad, but not free. A while ago I picked up a used F80 RLT to use on my race bike. The frame was designed around a 100mm fork, but I figured to give 80mm a shot anyway, since it would drop the front end a bit and give faster steering. I didn't like the ride so I decided to open up the fork and check out the guts, and change the travel and oil. I was happy to see that the person who sold the fork to me did a complete overhaul prior to the sale and the oil inside was pristine. Anyway, onto the travel adjustment.
In Floats and Vanillas travel adjustment is as easy as a rearrangement of spacers. In Floats it is easierst, since there are less springs. In case of the F series forks, this is more complicated, because in order to save all possible weight there are no spacers, simply, the travel adjusters, if you will, which are pinned into the assembly.
In order to change travel, you don't need to touch the right leg at all, the one with rebound/lockout/threshold adjustment, only the left one, where the air spring is. Simply unscrew the bolt in the bottom of left leg with a 10mm wrench, and unscrew the top cap with a 26mm wrench. It will also help to remove the air valve cap before undoing the leg cap. Remember to let all the air out before doing any of this, otherwise you might have a little explosion of high viscosity oil. Let the oil drain out and remove the plunger assembly from the leg. This is also a good time to wipe down the inside of the slider and stanchion. The assembly will look like so:
Examining more closely you will see a hole obove a black ring, like this:
The black ring has a hole in it as well, through which a pin is inserted. In the picture it is sitting in the 80mm position. At first glance I was pessimistic as to my ability to do anything about it, however, I took a nail and flattened the end, inserted it into the hole in the black ring and banged at the pin with the hammer. (I would advise against a use of a sharp tipped object because the pin is hollow on the inside and the last thing you would want to do is to make the thing expand) After a bit of banging here's what it looked like:
and a closeup:
Now, just bang it out further until it almost comes out of the black ring. Try not to get it all the way out, because it might be difficult to insert back into the ring, but I am not sure. You will see when the pin leaves the shaft because the ring will be loose. Slide it to the upper hole and bang it back in:
Voila! Your F80 fork is now F100. To lower travel just do the reverse. Assemble your fork back up, fill with proper amounts of oil. 20ml in the bottom, 7wt oil, like Maxima. 5ml of Float fluid at the top, to form the air seal.
_MK
In Floats and Vanillas travel adjustment is as easy as a rearrangement of spacers. In Floats it is easierst, since there are less springs. In case of the F series forks, this is more complicated, because in order to save all possible weight there are no spacers, simply, the travel adjusters, if you will, which are pinned into the assembly.
In order to change travel, you don't need to touch the right leg at all, the one with rebound/lockout/threshold adjustment, only the left one, where the air spring is. Simply unscrew the bolt in the bottom of left leg with a 10mm wrench, and unscrew the top cap with a 26mm wrench. It will also help to remove the air valve cap before undoing the leg cap. Remember to let all the air out before doing any of this, otherwise you might have a little explosion of high viscosity oil. Let the oil drain out and remove the plunger assembly from the leg. This is also a good time to wipe down the inside of the slider and stanchion. The assembly will look like so:
Examining more closely you will see a hole obove a black ring, like this:
The black ring has a hole in it as well, through which a pin is inserted. In the picture it is sitting in the 80mm position. At first glance I was pessimistic as to my ability to do anything about it, however, I took a nail and flattened the end, inserted it into the hole in the black ring and banged at the pin with the hammer. (I would advise against a use of a sharp tipped object because the pin is hollow on the inside and the last thing you would want to do is to make the thing expand) After a bit of banging here's what it looked like:
and a closeup:
Now, just bang it out further until it almost comes out of the black ring. Try not to get it all the way out, because it might be difficult to insert back into the ring, but I am not sure. You will see when the pin leaves the shaft because the ring will be loose. Slide it to the upper hole and bang it back in:
Voila! Your F80 fork is now F100. To lower travel just do the reverse. Assemble your fork back up, fill with proper amounts of oil. 20ml in the bottom, 7wt oil, like Maxima. 5ml of Float fluid at the top, to form the air seal.
_MK