Rear shockNever expected to get any troubles at this step. Rear shock mounting is the simplest step in the whole world! Yet the universe decided to prove me wrong.
So, i finally got my needle bearing - it was time to put my brand new shiny Monarch RT3. It started right at the very beginning.
1) Gliding bushings are fit so tightly in Rockshox (riding DT Swiss shock) - I was unable to remove it by myself and needed guys from LBS to do that for me. During all those attempts either I or LBS guys or both scratched and put little dents around the eyelet - so tightly the bushing sits!
2) To press-in the needle bearing I needed to remove rubber lips from my vice and press so hard I thought I gonna damage the bearing for sure!
3) For the front eyelet I just bought standard 21.8x8mm mounting 3 piece set, thinking that there is almost no movement in front, so why bother with a bearing... Am I just ignorant? I always thought that the bushing pin supposed to rotate in the gliding one... That is why it is called GLIDING! That is why it is coated with nylon or whatev! The bushing pin doesn't just slide in. It needed to be press fit. I pressed it against a wooden block and that wood got dents. So the bushing pin is now fixed, it is not gonna twist. Ok, I thought, bushing is going to twist around the shaft (shock bolt). Apparently not so easy. If you tighten the bolt with any strength it's enough to fix the bushing pin completely (against the frame), so the shock doesn't turn at all.
At the moment I see only 1 solution to that - put a liter of loctite in the bolt and do not tighten it seriously.
I mean, what a heck?! DT Swiss got a fancy mounting hardware, but there is never a problem fixing it. Rockshox is idiotically simple and yet...
Update 09.01.2017I attempted to solve this problem by ordering new Titanium shock bolts. Ordered 37mm ones, thinking that I'll shorten them a little. When the bolts arrived it appeared that our Chinese friends have their own understanding of standards. Given 37mm, is the total length of the bolt, not just the shaft as anyone would expect. So the length of the shaft was exactly the same as old shock bolts - 34mm. And no longer Ti recessed bolts are made by them.
Luckily, a standard aluminum profile sold in local building supplies stores has exactly needed dimensions - 8mmx1mm. I made a 3.1mm long spacer (and am left with another 1.5m of the profile
). This gives a perfect axle length, so when I tighten it, the frame mounts are not compressed and in turn do not compress bushing pin.
The alternative was to source some longer steel bolts and cut them. Unfortunately, in Europe, those recessed bolts are not so easy to come by.
This is how it looks:
For comparison - here are the standard shock bolts which come with 036 frame:
So, apparently my case is unique. No one else experiencing this problem with their shocks. Do you, guys, use shorter than recommended bushing kits?