Suspension forks falling apart!?

Question

Hi, my wife has a decent commuting bike, made by ideal, which has suspension front forks. The other day while lifting it over a railway bridge for her the lower forks which are in effect the cylinders, dropped off the fixed chrome parts which act as the piston. Bit of a surprise when it happened but it was easy enough to push back together & continued the journey. Question is... what is supposed to stop the forks from seperating like this? Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

Answer 1

Typically, a front ork will have an allen key bolt at the bottom of the stanchion.  Take you front wheel off and you will have access to this.  Tighten this and it should solve the problem.

However, go to this web site and check out the how to guides:

www.parktool.com

Luck

Answer 2

Ideal is a bike assembler based in Taiwan and also has a Chinese factory. Their primary function is to gather parts, paint, and assemble bikes for other companies. I've been to their factories numerous times. They produce bikes from the low end (around $200USD) all the way up to over $10,000USD retail. Needless to say they know what they're doing.

Unfortunately, since Ideal only assembles bikes it is pretty tough to determine who made your forks, based on your explanation I believe it is one of the lower end companies. I am basing my answer on this assumption.

The shock tubes (large diameter) are generally secured to the stanchions (small diameter) using a long bolt that reaches from the top of the fork to the bottom (sometimes from bottom to top but that is unimportant right now). On low end forks these bolts are made of plastic rod. As the shocks wear the rods stretch until they finally break. This allows separation as you have experienced.

Unfortunately, this grade of fork is usually pressed together and can't be repaired. Even if they were repairable it would be almost impossible to get parts.

So, I suggest that you purchase a new fork and have it installed by a knowledgable repairperson. Do NOT ride the bike with a broken fork unless you want to lose your wife.

Answer 3

forks aren't meant to fall apart. its broken. move on