Why is there oil in the Rock Shox Pike 454 Coil Forks?

Question

as above! why is the oil in the lower leg of the forks, what purpose does this serve?

Answer 1

It is primarily to damp the spring, but there are other reasons.

Whatever you do, do NOT ride the fork without oil, and do NOT use anything but the correct weight FORK oil in it. Don't use motor oil!

Answer 2

I have a 454 Dual Air, but y'know, I haven't even bothered to look at the service manuals yet to see how they put it all together.  Anyway, with good coil forks, many will use some free oil as a splash bath for the springs and bushings....some cheaper ones just use grease on the coils and non-lube bushings and call it good.  Again, I haven't looked at the 454's but most of the time your rebound cartridge has oil in it, too, so it could be that if yours took a beating it's leaking.  If the fork rebound seems normal and you can still adjust it then don't worry about that.  

I'll get around to looking it up sometime soon probably, but if you're interested now, go to Sram's website and click on the tech docs (or it may be under "service")....they have .pdf links for service instructions and parts diagrams for most of their products.  

Hope this helps some, sorry I couldn't give you a more definite answer.  sweet fork, though...I love mine.    :o)

Answer 3

It's for damping.  Without damping, the fork would bounce you off the bike as there would be nothing to control the force of the spring once it compresses.

Do some more research on suspension before asking this again.  Wikipedia will explain it all for you.