Hey Mountain Bike Action guys: I ride a RockShox Revelation dual-air fork. The positive air chamber’s cap is super hard to unscrew compared to the negative air chamber cap that I can remove with my fingers. Should I use pliers to unscrew the cap, or will that cause damage?
-G.A., with sore fingers
Mountain Bike Action: Using pliers will indeed mess up the cap--an unsightly modification for sure. Remove the cap (use the pliers if you have to--just this once--and try to do it with the least amount of pressure so you don’t crimp the cap or valve cylinder). Check the threads on both the valve cylinder and the cap for dirt or damage. Clean them if dirty or replace them if you see damage to the threads. If the threads look fine, we suspect that the Schrader valve is allowing air to leak from the positive air chamber, pressurizing that tiny chamber above the Schrader valve and below that hard-to-remove cap. This pressurization is what makes the caps so hard to turn. Let all the air out of the fork and remove the Schrader valve from the valve cylinder with a valve tool. You can clean it, but it is an inexpensive part, so we’d replace it. Pressurize the fork and apply a thin coating of grease to the valve cylinder's threads before replacing the cap. This should do the trick.
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