Rock Shox Tora TK 2011 - convert to air?

I have been looking for a good modern fork with canti mounts, and the best I came up with is a 2011 Tora TK. Purchased that in white because it'll go on a white bike.

However I need to lower the fork by approximately 50mm to avoid messing up the bike's geometry too much. That effectively halves the normal travel.
Lowering it is not that big a problem. A spacer in the left upper leg can prevent the bottom legs from extending completely.

The big problem is the spring rate. The default spring will be really difficult to compress during re-assembly. Shortening it will not provide enough preload to compensate for the reduced travel.
So I'd need either a softer regular spring or a shortened stiffer one, and it's difficult to predict which option will provide the correct preload.

I've been looking at the 2011 Reba on my Bulls, when it suddenly became clear that air suspension would be the way to go.
Is there a way to convert a Tora TK to air? Failing to do that, would it be possible to do a Frankenstein swap? (Tora lower legs on Reba body)

Arent the tora and rebas a similar chassis?
Or you could buy a set of toras for the air cart and switch them.

Doesnt the tora have u turn anyway?

My Tora SL's are white and air...
Work very very well. Perhaps you could pilage the internals out of a pair of those?

Well, as far as I can tell :

the Tora uses a metal spring and has chromed upper legs. One adjuster on the bottom right leg (rebound), a bolt on the bottom left leg.

The Reba uses air and has some gold-colour coated upper legs. It also has a rebound adjustment (abeit a different style of knob) on the bottom right leg, but there appears to be a second air valve on the bottom of the left leg.

The crown looks the same and both forks appear to have the same diameter legs. Both have a remote lock-out and appear to actually have the same damping unit. It's mostly the left leg that worries me.

I'll post pics of both tomorrow. (have both of them right here, but never tok either fork apart).

IIRC...

Dart & Tora are based on the same fork

Recon & Reba are based on the same fork

I don't believe they are cross compatible

There are 3 damping units in the RS range. Turnkey (the most basic AKA 'TK'), Motion Control (the far superior damping system, AKA 'MoCo') and the pro spec BlackBox, only seen on the very top en RS forks.

I don't think that you can swap from one damping system to another, but if you can the damping cartridges are pretty expensive £100+ IIRC

Usually the differences are that the steerer tube and fork's upper's are made of different materials, alloy on the lighter higher quality forks, steel on the lower spec models

If the fork's uppers are silver they're steel, gold coloured they're alloy

Changing from coil to air might be possible, I have not heard of anyone doing it on a Tora.

It won't be cheap to do it, if you can actually do it. I would imagine it may well cost ~£100 at a guess, judging by how much spares cost for RS forks

Your Reba is a Dual Air fork & will most probably have MoCo damping

I don't think you could Frankenfork the Reba with Tora lowers

I'd get shot of the Tora's & look out for 2nd hand Reba's with brake bosses and respray the lowers.

Why... Because the Reba is a far superior preforming fork. It is simply the best XC fork out there that is affordable for the masses, the MoCo damping is excellent & the Reba's lighter by a good pound over the Tora.

Personally I wouldn't waste money on converting the Tora (if you could convert it)

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... elID=68490

These... they only have them in black lowers, mine are white.
But you could use your white lowers and the rest of those forks?

Then put the black lowers back together with the rest of your parts and sell them off or use them for another bike.

Opps hang on... my Tora SL's are air only... thought these were the same... obviously not.

Thanks for the replies.

Looks like I'll be buying a Reba and repainting it then. Already found one on the Bay that still has canti bosses, but the headset tube is grey steel as opposed to the gold aluminium one on my Tora. I might do a bit of a FrankenFork after all.

oops my bad, i did know one wasnt compatible just couldnt remember which!

I think the argyle and toras have some interchangeable parts too