If you know what ‘Enduro seals’ mean you probably know about the problems and discussions of this alternate seals for Marzochi Forks. I will explain some public stuff, later you can read my post or jump to my public FB post directly.
Let me explain what we have here : this is a personal, private Blog entry, and it is my sum up and my private opinion. If you read the web carefully in all the various sources (discussion forums, social media channels etc.), you will find all this informations in discussions and statements being prooved an true. Other users might have other opinions and arguments, no problem for a free, democratic world (except rusia and some others!).
For the files : My partners and me have created a Marzocchi Fork <–> Seals Chart here, to be fair I added also Enduro Seals and others I know about. There are about 800 Marzocchi Forks included. If you are searching for Marzocchi Seals take a look and search your fork!
If you can support this chart : Please do!!
Introduction
This Enduro seals have been sold around the world for some years as an alternative for Marzocchi Seals, after Marzocchi stopped producing when FOX take them over. Big shame on FOX btw.!
The company behind Enduro seals is RWC – ‘Real World Cycling’, there domain is enduroforkseals.com / www.realworldcycling.com ins USA/Arizona.
They have some nice products in stock, e.g. seals and bearing – mainly low price stuff for the mass.
They sold a lot of seal kits for Marzocchi forks, as they jumped in when Marzocchi seals got rare. They created some simple seals design and sold it using good marketing – which means in der end a low price.
And of course they did every marketing trick like promoting new product versions v1, v2, v3 and keywords to push the product to the market and tricking the users. Unfortunately a lot of bigger shops sold this seals also and because of alternates the seals got sold in mass over the world and people get used to it. It is a good market because there must be thausends or millions (?) of Marzocchi forks around the world.
Other seals companies like Ariete, Pyramid, Athena etc. did the the same in the last years, the used their standard industrial design and simply copied seals in the size which was needed for Marzocchi’s. Be informed that this seals have NOT been made for MTB but for Motorcylce suspension (!), that’s the most important reason they behave different and bad in MTB suspension forks (stiffness, being too tight, break free moment, friktion etc.).
Funny one : RWC nowdays is heavily promoting Ariete Seals, so they step away from their own product … just wondering …. 😁🤣🙄😏 ==>
RWC promoting Ariete Seals 🤣
My Facebook Post
Read the post if you like, it’s an open, totaly free discussion. If you have some experience or have questions I encourage you to ask and support the discussions. Peace!!
Most of the bigger Bike shops having done lot’s of services don’t use Enduro seals anymore and I can tell you lot’s of stories about. Most important they will fail in air forks (best one is the one (air fork) hanging in a bike shop in the front window and exploded because of sun)!
2nd : If you drive your show bike in the city with Enduro Seals it will be o.k., if you work with your fork having fun with heavy pumping/compressions and driving in dirt the dust seal will fail for sure. That’s about hydraulics, the lips will lift off during pumping if they are too soft. To avoid dust comming under the dust seals you need stiffness! But well designed stiffness, not standard industrieal seals.
I have seen lots of Enduros having dirt under/in dust seal and this is the reason for damaged stanchions. Enduro is about the most stupid and most cheapest design + good marketing ( = simply flood the market and make it cheap).
But the Enduro seals simply can’t strip off the dust because of it’s geometry and material. Look at all other brands : the good working one all have 2 dust lips in the dust seal and include a solid sceleton.
Even more : nowadays I know from DVO that they prefer NBR90 instead of NBR70, which means in detail, that they want to make the Dust seals ‘harder’ to strip the dust of.
It is a simple wisom, that Marzocchi did a very good job in most of all details because there were real technicans, when other brands played lego with elastomers.
Believe it or not, we are all old enough to make our own decision in seals, just read.
You can burn me now, have a nice weekend!
Peace.
Dr-Mar Zocchi (FB – The Vintage Downhill MTB page Group, 20220528)
(Direct Post Link)
My Post – Why Enduro 3rd Party Seals sucks! @ FB
