Marzocchi Z1 QR20 refurb

[Roasted]

Before I start does any one know of the best place/person to get some new decals and the best place in Northampton/MK/Bedford to strip the paint off the forks?

In a moment of stupidity I bought a set of Marzocchi Z1 QR20s off ebay. I already have a set on my Kona Roast so thought it'd be nice if they had a friend

There wasn't much of a description in the add but the pictures showed that they are bit tired cosmetically. This was fine as they were going to sit in my shed for years before I got round to putting them on a bike.


When they arrived the fork brace was slightly bent with a small crack meaning the forks were twisted. That just won't do for something that will sit in the shed so they need an immediate refurb.


First off, remove the brace and check that it is bent. Three of the bolts come out but the last one puts up a fight and rounds off the allen head.

Great, every small job is one broken bolt away from being a 3 hour ordeal. Next plan, bolt extractor tool. This did a really good job of completely destroying the head.

Next was to cut a slot in the head to get a screwdriver on it, but this would mean cutting the brace. Needs must and I'm sure it's bent and definitely has a crack in it so let's crack on. I got a nice sized slot cut in it and got some good purchase on it but it just sheared off half the head.

My last effort was to cut off the brace so I could put what's left of the head in a vice and twist it out, this appeared to work, until I realised it was just shearing off what's left of the head. But the good news is that the brace is indeed twisted.



That's everything I have in my toolbelt so village Facebook page to the rescue. A kind bloke took the forks away, welded a nut on the end got it out that way.


Now that I know the forks can be refurbed its back to ebay and hope there is a replacement brace, and there is only one on there. It's a later one but will do just fine.


Next step is to get them stripped, painted and rebuilt and put on a bike. I want to get them built to look as original as possible with the brushed aluminium clear lacquer.

 

[The Kilt]

A little trick i learnt recently to take out siezed bolts...do the usual soak with oil, and then use a drill! tighten the chuck around the bolt real good and tight, and then reverse the direction to undo the bolt and voila! you can even try the hammer action it equiped and works a treat. Thats how i got one of my bolts out my Z1 after the exact same position was siezed. I just drilled off the top of the Allen head to remove the brace.

 

[Roasted]

A little trick i learnt recently to take out siezed bolts...do the usual soak with oil, and then use a drill! tighten the chuck around the bolt real good and tight, and then reverse the direction to undo the bolt and voila! you can even try the hammer action it equiped and works a treat. Thats how i got one of my bolts out my Z1 after the exact same position was siezed. I just drilled off the top of the Allen head to remove the brace.

That's an interesting idea. I was going to try mole grips but had a feeling it was going to be a bit too stubborn and didn't want to make it any worse.

I don't know what the factory torque settings are but I think they over torqued it, and with the foctory dollop of loctite it meant it was not coming out without a fight.

 

[Roasted]

3 years later and I've now started to the refurb as they will go on my Curtis SuperX so the forks on that can go on my Curtis SX24 RaceLite.

These forks had quite a lot of corrosion. Ideally I would keep them with a standard finish, but the amount of sanding to remove the pitting would be far too much effort effort for me. Instead I'll take back the corrosion to an acceptable level and do a Marzocchi orange finish instead.





The first job was to remove the clear coat. To do this I used some paint stripper and a scraper. The paint stripper did appear to loosen the clear coat and it came off relatively easily.


After stripping, the sanding started. I used 240 and 400 grit wet and dry. I went quite a bit further than the picture but didn't take a photo of the finished result. This is where I got to in October last year.

Back in March I bought some paint of ebay, the set came with primer, metalic paint and lacquer. Having looked at my other orange fork it looks as if there was a small metalic flake used, so got a can of metalic gold flake.

It look till the start of October to get round to painting. The primer went on quite nicely, very happy with the result so far.

I found a post on a forum somewhere that said that Opel/Vauxhall Mandarin 21U was reasonably close to Marzocchi Orange, so that's what I got. The colour looks good but my inexperience with spraying meant that I got some runs and used a whole can but still had some thin spots. Another can ordered. While I wait I flatted back the paint and sand down the runs.

Once the second can arrived I could finish the base coat. I started to get the hang of it and the finish was looking even. Now the clear coat, but the flake first. This was easy to apply but I don't think it looks particularly good as the flake is too big. The clear coat next, the first coat went on OK but the can started spiting on the second coat making a really rough finish. Shaking the can it felt like there was a large clump of hard lacquer in there, I guess sitting in my house during the hot summer had caused it to cure in the can.

Oh well, time to flatten it off, at least it gives me an opportunity to remove a bit of the gold flake while I wait for the new can to arrive.

 

[Cloverleaf]

That's an interesting idea. I was going to try mole grips but had a feeling it was going to be a bit too stubborn and didn't want to make it any worse.

I don't know what the factory torque settings are but I think they over torqued it, and with the foctory dollop of loctite it meant it was not coming out without a fight.

It'll have been galvanic corrosion between the stainless steel and the aluminium, especially if there's mag in the lowers. A suggestion for future stubborn bolts is to soak for a few days to a week (if you know it's going to be really stubborn) in Bulldog BDX which is amazing stuff.