How to lower ROCK SHOX Domain fork

Author	Message

cxt3000

Posted: Apr 24, 2012 at 0:36

Quote

Today i lowered my 2012 rock shox domain r fork from 180mm to 165mm of travel the axle to crown distance therewith lowered from 565mm to 550mm. Since there is no foolproof tutorial on how to do this, i decided to write it down as detailed as possible.
First unbolt the top cap on the left side of the fork (the side without the rebound adjuster or compression adjuster on rc fork). Then remove the preload spacers (usually 2), unbolt the bolt on the lower leg 3-4 turns and hammer it gently (i used a rubber-plastic hammer) untill the assembly comes loose. What you get out of the fork from top to bottom is: 2 preload spacers, main spring, spring rod with spring bed and the negative spring assembly. You do not need to remove the lower legs from the fork!!! If the negative spring won't come out, you should put the spring rod back in, screw in the top cap and shake the fork so the negative spring assembly comes loose as it's probably held in by the oil. It was like this in my case and i thought i needed to remove the lower legs and remove the negative spring assembly from the bottom of the slider. FAIL!

Anyways, lets get on with the tutorial...
Now you have the whole assembly out of the fork. Now you need some spacers. I used rubber washers (hard rubber). You only need to worry about the outer diameter. Should be something like the preload spacer width. You can always drill the hole to be the same as the spring rod. Since i used rubber washers i could drill the holes so they fit snuggly. I guess you can use preload spacers too

To assemble the whole thing it's best to go this way: First take the spring rod and slide the negative spring assembly on. Then put the spacers on (if possible the last spacer should be rubber so it can fit snuggly on the rod so the whole assembly doesn't slide off and there is softer contact between the bottom of the slider. Now slide the assembly in so the rod goes through the small hole on the bottom of the slider. Now at the bottom of the lower leg you put the bolt back in (the rod will be shorter now because of the spacers so you need to push sliders into the lower leg a bit so that you can reach the rod with the bolt). With the bolt screwed in all you need to do now is to insert the main spring from the top and since the compression of the spring will be greater, you don't need to put any preload spacers there but i suggest you put some thin piece of rubber there to avoid metal to metal contact (spring - top cap).
Then you screw in the top cap and that's it

I suggest you don't go crazy with the lowering because the lower you go the more the spring will be compressed and at one point the fork won't work as it should.

And now for some frequently asked questions:
-You can lower the domain r - rc fork with low cost
-Axle to crown distance changes
-I don't know about the 160mm fork, but i guess it's about the same
-You can't highten the fork from stock to more
-You can reverse the process

-If you have the u-turn, you don't need to read this

-You don't need much technical know how to do this
-Maybe i didn't use the right words for some parts but i'm not english or american

(feel free to correct me)

Here is a sketch of the fork and how the conversion should look like:

mikethebike27

Posted: Oct 10, 2012 at 12:37	Quote
I'm just curious, how does it lower it by adding spacers? Also please could you send me a link to the spacers you bought or give me dimensions etc. Cheers, Mike

Ploutre

Posted: Oct 10, 2012 at 14:37	Quote
Yes that is how you lower a coil sprung fork Only issue I see is that when you add spacers bellow the negative spring, you should be cutting the spring by roughly the same amount. You can always force-compress the spring to screw in the top cap, but that would be like running 180mm with 15mm of preload spacers ...

cxt3000

Posted: Oct 26, 2012 at 5:36

Quote

anything plastic works as long as it has the same of similar diameter than the preload spacers. How this works is the slider is closed at the bottom so by adding a spacer there, the rod that goes to the leg where it's bolted gets shorter. The spring gets compressed and that's why you should remove the preload spacers. Because you've relocated them to shorten the travel. You get 1,5cm of spacers with the fork i think so by compressing the coil 5 more milimeters it shouldn't alter the behaviour of the fork

mikethebike27 wrote:

I'm just curious, how does it lower it by adding spacers? Also please could you send me a link to the spacers you bought or give me dimensions etc.

Cheers, Mike

cxt3000

Posted: Oct 26, 2012 at 5:42

Quote

Yes, that's right but you should consider that the lower the fork is the stiffer the coil should be so it doesn't bottom out so quickly. and you don't want to cut the coil because you couldn't get a flat surface at the bottom and the coil woult rotate and rub against the inside of the slider and/or something else. Same goes if you would cut the coil at the top. I know that from people who cut the coils to lower cars

Ploutre wrote:

Yes that is how you lower a coil sprung fork

Only issue I see is that when you add spacers bellow the negative spring, you should be cutting the spring by roughly the same amount. You can always force-compress the spring to screw in the top cap, but that would be like running 180mm with 15mm of preload spacers ...

Sergio44

Posted: Apr 12, 2014 at 15:09	Quote
Hey guys i have a question can you convert a domain r to a domain rc?

Ploutre

Posted: Apr 12, 2014 at 16:24

Quote

Sergio44 wrote:

Hey guys i have a question can you convert a domain r to a domain rc?

Yeah, just buy the Motion Control damper, and just plug it in. Might be a good idea to do a whole service on the fork while you're at it

Sergio44

Posted: Apr 12, 2014 at 20:48	Quote
Cool thanks It's brand new i just got the bike a couple of days ago.

chorn69

Posted: Jun 29, 2014 at 1:21	Quote
Photo?

bighitliam

Posted: Aug 2, 2014 at 11:12	Quote
You should make a tutorial video dude

cevet87

Posted: Aug 14, 2014 at 20:22	Quote
I am getting a banging sound when the fork comes back up to full travel :/

braapkob

Posted: Apr 2, 2015 at 16:49	Quote
Does anyone know how many centimetres i can lower a domain rc 180mm? I'd like to use it in my slope/4x bike and therefore 180mm are just too much

cxt3000

Posted: May 4, 2015 at 5:49

Quote

I've just lowerd 180mm domains to 140mm by cutting the spring and using spacers. Works but the spring is now harder, which is fine for ss/4x

just remember that when you cut the spring, you have to heat it with a blowtorch and twist it on the side you cut so you get a smaller diameter at the end, then you push the end in so it's almost flat and you do the rest with the grinder to get the bottom of the spring the same as it was originally.

dh4life21 wrote:

Does anyone know how many centimetres i can lower a domain rc 180mm?
I'd like to use it in my slope/4x bike and therefore 180mm are just too much

mroneeyedboh

Posted: Jul 6, 2018 at 19:31	Quote
Digging this one up... How do you know what size spacer to cut and use? Just use whatever sized spacer that you want to shorten the fork up by?

cxt3000

Posted: Jul 19, 2018 at 2:55	Quote
Yep.

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