rebuild of a Cannondale headshok ELS

Todays post is about my Cannondale delta V 700:

 Ever since i got it off Craigslist the fork has never worked. If I pushed real hard down on the handle bars the fork would compress about 1/8 of an inch. So for all intents and purposes it act's like a ridge Fork. I have been riding it like this for several months now and while i LOVE this bike I wanted to see if i could bring it back to its former glory.

I have been wanting to learn how to repair and maintain my Cannondale Forks:
I have a Lefty DLR (2000)
a Lefty DLR2 (2007)
a Super Fatty D
and the "Delta suspension system" fork that I'm writing about today.

According to this site: the fork I have is a Headshok ELS with a whopping 50 MM of travel. 

HEADSHOK--1992-1995

50mm of travel
Cartridges are non-serviceable
Upgrade to Spring Kit, DD60, or Fatty 50
Max. travel of 50mm
HDTL148/

There a few tools that one need's to work on Cannondale Headshok's and lefty's.

Most of all the "cannondale castle tool"

Wwwwwwell I dont have one of these so after seeing this video:

I adopted the idea of using the 90° pliers this man uses. Hats off to you buddy! that was a good idea you had there! 

OK, so a while back was farting around a local community bike shop yacking it up with one of the guys that volunteers there. I was going on and on about how much I love Cannondale's and the headshok / Lefty's that thy make. When he pulled out from a box a replacement spring kit that someone had donated. He said that thy don't see many old Cannondales with the 1.5 head tubes and that these (there were two spring kits) had been sitting on the box for a long time. So he gave me one. (SQUEEEE)

SEE more images here

At the time i didn't know that it was useable on the Fork of my Delta V. well as it turned out it was.



I decided to take apart mt Delta V's fork to find out why it didn't move more than 1/8 of an inch. as i found out, this fork used a elastomer. Over the years the elastomer had rotted out.
Here is what it looked like when i puled it out.

Parity Nasty!

As it turned out this the 90° pliers were the only special tool that was needed to take this fork apart. I used it as a pin spinner (not having a real pin spinner) to remove the top cap from the top of the telescoping tube.

Under this is another cap that had two holes for a spinner tool to go into. It was too deep for the 90° pliers so I used a two small tipped screwdrivers to back this cap out.


under here was a LOT of ROT! Dry powdery gummy stuck on ROT!

The elastomer was wedged down into the fork so hard that i had to use a long screw to stab into it and pull it out. (See photo above)


Here's what the inside of the telescope looks like:

WHOPPIE!

After cleaning out all the crap from the inside of the telescope I took the spring and its not as rotted elastomer, slathered it in grease and dropped it in. I didn't get to take photos of this because my fingers were covered in grease and didn't want to mess up my iPhone. (I don't have a real camera)

So, now that it's all back together the fork works MUCH better. The top has a Hole that has a Hex nut inside of it the can be used to set the per-tension on the spring. (now that it has a spring)
This is a nice feature as i can "Dial in" the stiffness of the fork and it relay WORKS!

So, now the fork is back on the bike, the brakes reset and stem is aligned, this cannondale rides better than it ever has.

This Fork now has a new lease on life and I LOVE my bike even MORE!
Riding on this fork now that it is fully functioning is like a hole new ride. the bike feel's like i have a new fork.



Next up is the rebuild of my Headshok Super Fatty D. this aught to be fun.
Stay tuned!