Bilstein 7100 - oil quantities?

[craig]

I'm attempting to rebuild my 7100 following the Bilstein rebuild guide. Everything was going fine until I tried to refill them with oil. The instructions appear to be innacurrate including the example.

- As I understand it, the rebuild guide states that I should put in 700ml total on a 10" external reservoir shock. Putting 200ml into the external reservoir, then the remaining 500ml into the shock body.

I'm finding that I can only fit 100ml into the external reservoir (almost 200ml w/ the hose full) and only 550ml total. That's an overflowing shock body.

The example doesn't doesn't add up using their own numbers which leaves me questioning the whole guide.

I'm still assuming that I'm doing something wrong, but was wondering if the 10" w/ reservoir fill values in the rebuild guide are correct?

Thanks for the help.

Craig

 

[craig]

With some help from Larry G I now realize that I had the piston inside the external reservoir set to the wrong depth. Still need finished filling it, but I think I'm good to go now.

Thanks Larry.

 

[ntsqd]

FWIW I have never measured how much oil I put in a shock. I set the divider piston's location according to spec (I use a highly calibrated piece of welding rod with a piece of electrical tape on it poked through the core-less Schrader valve to check position) and fill away. I always deliberately overfill the shock body by an estimated small amount, and let the rod guide/seal body push a little out onto a strategically placed rag on the floor. I want there to be no air in the oil. That is a far bigger sin than missing the oil fill quantity by a small amount.

 

[craig]

Yeah, I wound up doing sort of a hybrid of that approach. I pushed the reservoir piston to the bottom, measured the oil, and poured it all in. After moving the shock piston up/down a bit to insure there wasn't any air trapped in there I bled it by pushing on the reservoir piston either with my fingers on the outside, or with a clothes hanger through the schraeder valve. As one would expect, it went in about 100mm before the oil levels hit the inner snap ring. I went about 1-2mm over the inner snap ring and put the top seal in place.

I think I did it right. I'll find out next week in the middle of nowhere.