Changing fork oil on Qlink QingQi 200

[david3921]

Reassembly. It's pretty much the reverse but with some important notes.

At the bottom of forks there are flat spots that line up with the flats on the cartrage. You can barly see them in the picture below. They are on the lower right on my right hand fork. These flats keep the cartrage from turning when tighting the bolt at the bottom of the forks. Mark the location of the cartrage flats on the top of the cartrage where the rod meets the main body. I used a paint pen. You want to be able to see from the top the location of the flats so that you can turn the cartrage so that it drops into the correct position in the fork. With the right lighting you can see the flats at the bottom of the fork and put the cartrage close when reinstalling. You can turn the cartrage by the rod until it catches in the flat.

Replace the bolt. As a note, the bolt has a copper crush washer. I have a set of washers from Harbor Freight but didn't have the correct size so I flipped them and reused them. You have to work them off with a screw driver a bit at a time as they are a tight fit.

After tightening the bolt use the measurement taken before to ensure the cartrage is seated correctly. If it's too long, loosen the bolt and rotate the cartrage until you get it right.

The cartrage rod will tend to slid down until it gets oil back in it. Don't worry about letting it go as it can be retreived with needle nose pliers.

So here's the steps for reassembly;

Cartrages in.
Rotate to fit into flat.
Bolts in.
Measure with rod extended.
Springs in.
Oil in. Pour in 330ml into each slowly.
Pump cartrage rods to get oil in and air out.
Sleeve in (if fell off of pipe), pipe on.
Push down pipe while holding cartrage rod up, put on clip.
End caps on. Rubber bushing first, then cap.
Jack up bike, caps go down.
Tighten caps. careful that the caps thread correctly.
Tighten tree bolts.
Replace brake hose bracket and fork protectors.

I think that's it. Let me know if I missed anything.

As a side note. As stated in the first post, I think it's possible to try different weights by doing the following;

Take out the bottom bolt and drain the oil.
Replace the bolt.
Measure what comes out of each fork.
Pop the top caps as decribed earlier and pour in the new weight based on what came out of each fork.

This seems like a quick and dirty way to check for the correct oil weight. Once determined, the whole procedure described above can be done if desired.