Manitou R7 locked out

I've got a new set of R7's. I took the bike out on it's second ride today (a commute to work on sealed roads). On a longish climb I decided to try out the remote lockout feature. Forks locked out climb was great. At the completion of the climb they wouldn't unlock. Thus far I've disassembled the cable mechanism and tried feeding the cable into the fork upper to disengage the mechanism. No luck thus far.

My LBS says no problem we send them away and 1-2 week turnaround which isn't ideal given I want to ride my bike. So:

a) Has this happened to anyone out there
b) Were you able to disengage the mech and how
c) Any tips on preventing it from happening again

--brett

 

Man, that sucks...
I dont think i can help but i have heard that R7s have a long break in period...may it be that the just havent been broken in enough yet?

 

not sure if this will be of any help at all, but on most rockshox forks that have remote lockouut (of which ive owned tora's and am currently using reba's) somtimes if its been a heavy out of the saddle climb that has worked the fork a bit in the locked position, the fork wont unlock untill i lift the front end slightly to un sag the fork, at which point the lock out unit on the fork takes up the cable slack and unlocks.

not sure if this will help you at all.

 

Sideshow,
Take apart the lock-out assembly and check to see of the 75mm spring inside the upper shaft has any grease on it - not having grease on the spring MIGHT cause it to bind inside the shaft resulting in the lockout to not dissengage properly. (The purpose of the spring is to add tension to the cable allowing it to unlock)
Hopefully this might solve your problem

 

Sideshow,
Take apart the lock-out assembly and check to see of the 75mm spring inside the upper shaft has any grease on it - not having grease on the spring MIGHT cause it to bind inside the shaft resulting in the lockout to not dissengage properly. (The purpose of the spring is to add tension to the cable allowing it to unlock)
Hopefully this might solve your problem

 

Thanks for the replies guys. I wrote to Manitou's tech support directly. Apparently a batch of these forks had an out of spec part in the lockout assembly. The only way to permanently fix was to return the fork and Manitou would replace the entire lockout assembly.

I did this and haven't had an issue since it's return. The fork also failed to hold air which the LBS thought was due to there not being much oil in the bath. Manitou on replacing the lockout also looked at this. Fork came back and still failed to hold air. Manitou were good about the whole thing and ended up sending a new piston to my LBS to fit, which resolved the issue.

In summary, I had some issues which was disappointing on a new and fairly high end bike, and resulted in a few weeks with no ride, but Manitou's service and support were pretty decent.

--brett