# Manitou Machete J-Unit fork setup



## fitek (Nov 25, 2014)

Hi folks, I picked up a 120mm 20" Manitou Machete when they came out (arg, they're a lot cheaper now) but haven't been able to dial this fork in. It's mounted on a Rokkusuta using an EC44 headset. Thanks to the short a2c this doesn't throw the geometry off very much. HOWEVER...

My son is 42 pounds and using the recommended pressure setting (50psi IIRC), the fork does not sag at all. We did a ride and he complained about his wrists hurting... not a surprise, with some light riding, the rubber ring moves a millimeter or two. He also whined non-stop uphill, with the front wheel flopping all over the place on steep sections, presumably because the bike was so slacked out with no sag. 

I lowered pressure to 40 psi, but below 45 psi the fork travel decreases which makes setting the sag more complicated. I noticed I have to compress the fork several times after changing the pressure to get it to settle. When I remove the shock pump, it loses a few PSI as well and I have to repeat. It seems to lose somewhere between 2-5psi when I remove the shock pump.

My shock pump doesn't go below 30psi, and it's really hard dialing it in given I'm guessing at the actual pressure (same experience with the X-Fusion rear shock, we've got like 10% sag on that, which seems to work OK though-- less pressure and the shock just turtles on itself). Right now I have it about 35psi before pump removal, and travel looks to be almost 90mm with about 20mm of sag. Reducing the pressure more reduced travel without increasing sag %. 

I figure 90mm of travel with 22% sag is better than a longer fork which is basically rigid. 

Fork looks really legit.

Anyone got any advice?


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## rtc1930 (Jun 3, 2016)

Funny timing but I just got a bike with this fork on it today and having trouble with adjustment as well but can't tell if its an adjustment issue or fork issue. I suspected it might of been damaged in shipping since the air cap sticking off the bottom of the fork was completely worn through. It looks like it protruded through the box during shipping. See pic. 

At first I was hoping only the cap was damaged since i was still able to thread on my shock pump and the fork still had 70psi in it but after adjusting to 40psi for his weight (50lbs) per the table I found on Manitou site, it seemed to make the fork even stiffer. As you described it has no sag and I can barely compress it 20mm under my weight nevermind my sons. The bike came with the 80mm version of the fork if the spec is correct (i dont see an 80mm version on manitou's site). I tried increasing and decreasing but it seemed the lower the pressure the stiffer it got. I also confirmed the lockout is backed out.

Does this sound like your fork as well? I poked around online for troubleshooting or recommended settings but since it's pretty new there seems to be little info. I was just about to write to ChainReaction to see what I should do if this was damaged but my son is bummed I won't let him ride until I confirm nothing needs to go back. I'll mess around with it a little more and see if i can get it to "settle in" like you said yours did. 

Regarding the 2-3 psi delta from the pump, they all do this (or at least all my bikes do) since you lose a little air volume to the hose when you reconnect the pump. I'm told the pressure you set before disconnecting is whats in the air chamber and the puff of air you hear was just what was in the hose of the pump.


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## fitek (Nov 25, 2014)

Ours does behave as you mentioned. It is softer with more air, but not soft enough. Around the recommended setting I could not compress it myself. 

my understanding is all travel lengths of this fork are the same fork, just with spacers or something inside. 

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## rtc1930 (Jun 3, 2016)

I can only seem to get ours to compress 65mm no matter how hard I push on it. I upped the pressure again but honestly, I only feel a 10% difference between 30psi and 70psi (and its a lower force at 70). I technically can't "fully" compress my rockshox on my 5010 while pushing on it either standing still but i know the o-ring often indicates it bottomed during a ride. So maybe bouncing on it standing still is not a good indicator but sounds like you didn't see much travel during use either. I also read the rebound may load up preventing full travel but that doesn't seem to change noticeably much.

It does look amazing and isn't sticky like the coil forks we have on our other kids bikes but was expecting more from it I guess. I still think there is something up with mine as it should "float" more around the sag. I haven't succeeded in getting any sag unless i put my full weight on it. Hopefully someone else will chime in to give you more insight to better settings though as mine are not much help. 

I just looked at the assembly diagram and see the spacers you reference. I wonder if they have different air shafts in the different lengths as well or if you can change travel size with spacers alone. I know my rockshox can go from 130 to 140 by changing out a shaft but the spacers are only for changing volume.


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## fitek (Nov 25, 2014)

It's just the spacers IIRC. I think that probably helps get enough manufacturing volume on these. 

I can only get about 2/3rd travel with my body weight. But as you said, it's about the same on my bike. If it bottoms out with just a static body weight load, you are going to have problems with dynamic loads. I wouldn't be surprised if a hard flat drop loads it with two or three times body weight. Of course on a 50 lbs child that's only 150lbs but we seem to be missing something on the setup here anyway. 

I'm going to re-read the instructions. 



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## fitek (Nov 25, 2014)

So I searched for other posts and found this. I did notice that unless my pump is really screwed on, weird things happen. Guess the red pin on the Schrader causes the positive and negative chambers to equalize, rather than being isolated. Otherwise you are filling the negative chamber. Which I guess might be why our forks are shrinking. I stole an image from Rockshox about dual air which is attached and something off Google about using different positive and negative pressures.









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## fitek (Nov 25, 2014)

Btw on yours the anodizing is worn off the needle. I wonder if it ever gets depressed if it's been ground down from being dragged. You can try pressing on it with a screwdriver and see if your fork suddenly jolts as the pressure equalizes.

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## rtc1930 (Jun 3, 2016)

Good find!!

You were correct it wasn't fully seating and only pressurizing one side. I was able to get my shock pump further on with a bit more force and set the pressure where i wanted it. You could hear the chambers equalize once it was on far enough. The fork feels as expected now!

So I guess the question is whether the worn down pin is going to be an issue long term or if I just deal with having to really crank on the pump? I have not heard back from CRC yet but I'll see what they say and I guess go from there.

Regarding your original question, I can try to set the sag later with my son on it and see where he ends up relative to your settings (assuming they are close in weight). This was the chart I found that I was using for setting the pressure so I would think that 35psi range is where you want to be. My pump goes down to 20psi but its a bit old and heard the accuracy of these can be questionable but should all be relative.


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## fitek (Nov 25, 2014)

My pump just doesn't press that needle enough. I pumped the shock up, removed the pump, and manually depressed it with the Schrader cap to equalize. I'm up to 107mm travel and the fork is soft. So looking much better! It's pouring rain now otherwise we'd go do a shakedown at lunch.

I measured how much the needle protrudes. If it were me I'd prefer to get your fork replaced, or get some money back (CRC had the fork for 250 last I checked) but if it's too much headache and the needle hasn't lost much material, it's probably going to be OK. I'd mostly be worried about warranty and then whether there might be any leakage cuz of that Schrader being abused. If it's just the anodizing that came off ... It's pretty thin and easy to scrape off.

Also for completeness, I'm attaching the spacer diagram.









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## svinyard (Aug 14, 2017)

Hey man, looks like you got it figured out. It should be ultra plush. I wouldn't worry too much about what exact PSI you have but more just on getting a good 25% sag. That being said, we run our 24" JUnit at about 35PSI I think and it works awesome. Rebound is pretty open at these low PSI's and I have a couple of clicks of compression.

Regarding the needle, its just that some pumps don't work with it. The Lezyne Digital shock pump I use has to be screwed on all the way or it won't equalize. Also note that you can tune the travel manually a bit if the pump is screwed on (and equalizing) by just pressing the fork down a bit. When you remove the pump, it'll roughly stay at that lower travel and be ultra smooth off the top.


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## TheRoadSouth (Aug 18, 2019)

*Thinking about this fork as well*

I've been considering this fork as well for my daughter's 20 inch Rokkusuta.

Have you guys found it to be a noticeable improvement over the stock El Dorado fork?


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## svinyard (Aug 14, 2017)

TheRoadSouth said:


> I've been considering this fork as well for my daughter's 20 inch Rokkusuta.
> 
> Have you guys found it to be a noticeable improvement over the stock El Dorado fork?


We have both the Brood Fork in 20" 80mm of travel and the JUnit 24" 145mm

The JUnit Fork is wildly nice. I'd wager its tune and internals are nicer than most forks that adults are riding on 3k$ bikes. Manitou's best air spring and a very nice damper...all custom tuned for a 50lb kid (in 20"). It's been flawless for us a big step up from the Brood. My 8yro overshot this jump a few days ago (not video'd) and the Manitou suspension did an amazing job in smoothing it out...so the kid says. All highfives instead of ER drives.





iirc it's also around 250g heavier than the Brood fork in 20"...which isn't a trivial amount of weight. While its not rotational, it is towards the end of the "lever". The Brood fork worked quite well for us tho and my kid hit it fairly hard for a bigger 6yro (my younger 5yro now rides it on his Yama Jama). It does have a limit tho. That being said, I saw RMCDan's kid (unreal rider) go huge on the 20" Brood fork yrs ago and it still worked well enough on video...tho handling 10ft+ gap isn't the only metric of success for a fork. Its plush as well and nearly stiction free.

My perspective is that if the kid is going huge and fast, the JUnit fork is the right move for sure. But those kids are really rare on a 20" bike. If not, it'll likely be fine to stick with the Brood fork and save the money for their 24" bike where you can get a full Manitou suspension package (JUnit and McLeod Nino) and get the new gucci stuff (maybe some ultralight wheels too). Hard to say tho...its fun to upgrade their bikes if you have some spare cash.


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## TheRoadSouth (Aug 18, 2019)

Thanks, that's a great perspective. And your kid's got some skills!

My daughter is only 4 and very light so she's not at the stage of taking big hits yet, though she is progressing very quickly and is unafraid to try jumps and drops.

The El Dorado has been decent for her in eating up choppy terrain, but I find there to be very little if any ramp up or progression in the leverage. The fork feels very linear and that's the only reason I was really thinking of upgrading.

Is there anything needed apart from the fork to make the swap?


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## svinyard (Aug 14, 2017)

TheRoadSouth said:


> Thanks, that's a great perspective. And your kid's got some skills!
> 
> My daughter is only 4 and very light so she's not at the stage of taking big hits yet, though she is progressing very quickly and is unafraid to try jumps and drops.
> 
> ...


Ah you know...it might not work at all actually. I think that Rokkusuta has a straight headtube, not a tapered one. The JUnit forks are all tapered iirc.

One thing you might do is adding some more air into the fork or a couple of clicks of compression (its a spring damper I think). Brian showed me how to service the fork and I hacked a (poor) video together of it. In it, you'll see how to shave down the spacer to give you full travel and it ramps up more before bottoming. But yeah its a linear fork, but that worked well for us...maybe its as simple as more air? We run PSI equal to their body weight and then a bit more.


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## TheRoadSouth (Aug 18, 2019)

It's definitely possible with the right head tube adapter, I've seen pics of the junit on the 20 inch rokkusata (https://www.pinkbike.com/buysell/2587445/). Not sure if the wheel would need a spacer also.

I talked to Spawn and they recommended 45psi for a 38lbs rider (my daughter's weight). I think I had more pressure in there before but at some point things start to get weird with the negative/positive pressure. 45psi feels mostly right apart from the linear feel of the fork.

I do want to try this trick to shave down the spacer, it sounds promising.


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## svinyard (Aug 14, 2017)

Yeah that's Dan's old bike. Such a sick ride. Dominions on their too lol. He knows way more about this than I do and have obviously done it too. He'll comment here at some point. That adapter setup with the extra lower cup looks pretty clean. 

I didnt have issues with that Brood fork, even up to 75psi. It doesn't have a dual chamber spring if I recall so it should be pretty simple...but yeah it's not super progressive at the end.


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## cakemonster (Sep 30, 2012)

Has anyone services their JUNIT yet or at least dropped the lowers?

I am looking to at least do the lowers/seals and air spring, but was looking through the manual and wanted clarification on the 8mm thin socket.

https://hayesbicycle.com/products/machete-j-unit-24-boost-100mm-travel-matte-black-1-5-taper

How critical is the 8mm thin walled socket?

https://hayesbicycle.com/products/p...MInK3Lj-rA6wIVC43ICh2RuwmXEAQYAyABEgIQTfD_BwE

I only need that, don't use the split cassette tool, and I have chamferless sockets.

There is a note that you can use a 8mm wrench and a 4mm hex wrench.

"Note: the compression rod can also be loosened by using an 8mm box end
wrench on the external hex and a 4mm hex wrench on the internal hex of the
comp rod end fitting. Rotating both wrenches clockwise simultaneously will
loosen the compression rod, reducing the risk of damaging a seized end fitting."

But I am not sure where the 4mm wrench fits (the valve stem sticks out of the end).

Questions:
1. Has any one done it without that tool?
2. Will a regular thin walled 8mm socket work (Tekton etc?, 8mm spark plug tool?)
3. Will Hayes sell the 8mm socket tool alone?

Thank You in advance.

Note: I found this...

https://www.pinkbike.com/u/scar4me/blog/manitou-mattoc-air-spring-issues.html

It appears you just press in the schader valve to get purchase on the inside. I don't love this method and probably best to buy the tool, but $65 for just that is not cool.


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

TheRoadSouth said:


> It's definitely possible with the right head tube adapter, I've seen pics of the junit on the 20 inch rokkusata (https://www.pinkbike.com/buysell/2587445/). Not sure if the wheel would need a spacer also.


Way late to the party here, but yeah, that's my kid's old bike. It's somewhere in Kansas now.

You need to swap the lower headset cup to an EC44/40. Even with the extra stack of the external cup the A2C is almost exactly the same as the 120 mm JUNIT. All the JUNIT forks are 110 mm spacing so you'll need new end caps for the front hub or possibly a new front wheel.


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## jaybert (Sep 10, 2020)

Just wanted to say thanks. I got this on my nukeproof Cub Scout race and has same issue where I set the psi to the recommended amount it was still very stiff. I ended up manually pressing the valve all the way in (and letting out all the air), tightening the shock pump really right and then filled it up to somewhere around 30psi and now it feels buttery smooth. Waiting for my son to wake up so I can test the sag and fine tune it a bit.

Edit: I would mention that you need to push a tiny bit to get the shocks to compress at all then it's very smooth so not sure if it's still not set perfectly. For example if my son just leans on it, it doesn't sag at all, but if he gives it just a little jolt then it sags (and can stay sagged if he continues to lean on it).  Still way better than before so we are going to ride with it and see how it goes.



fitek said:


> My pump just doesn't press that needle enough. I pumped the shock up, removed the pump, and manually depressed it with the Schrader cap to equalize. I'm up to 107mm travel and the fork is soft. So looking much better! It's pouring rain now otherwise we'd go do a shakedown at lunch.
> 
> I measured how much the needle protrudes. If it were me I'd prefer to get your fork replaced, or get some money back (CRC had the fork for 250 last I checked) but if it's too much headache and the needle hasn't lost much material, it's probably going to be OK. I'd mostly be worried about warranty and then whether there might be any leakage cuz of that Schrader being abused. If it's just the anodizing that came off ... It's pretty thin and easy to scrape off.
> 
> ...


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## svinyard (Aug 14, 2017)

A couple of things here: (we have the 20 and 24 JUnit)

1- We run a LOT less PSI than their charts suggest and it works well. We shoot for proper sag. Our 20" is running about 17PSI (via my Lezyne digi-pump). Wide open rebound, no compression.

2- You can connect the shock pump (very tight), and then manually compress the fork very slightly. This will tune the Neg chamber making it more plush off the top. The fork seals will wear-in slightly and you won't have hardly any stiction. We don't at least. The kid (who is 6yro & 48lbs) is running around 20% sag I think. He doesn't bottom it out but he uses a fair amount of the travel...and he isn't sending anything huge yet but did go hard on at bike park last month. Mostly fun blue lines but some pretty mellow black technical lines too.

On a side note, once we went up to the JUnit 20" Fork over the Spawn Fork (20" Yama Jama), the kid has been sending stuff faster and with more bad decisions...and has yet to go OTB. The increased fork height over Spawns slacked out the bike and the JUnit fork is WAY more supportive in the midstroke and end stroke. He bottomed out the Spawn fork frequently even with 60 PSI in it (iirc). He'd go OTB once a ride on that setup. Even in the rowdy bike park stuff, never OTB. Its been a godsend. Some of that is geo and certainly some is the fork.


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## TimTucker (Nov 9, 2011)

Quick question for anyone who has the 24 and some spare wheels lying around -- any idea if a 26" will fit, and if so how big?

Debating some different options for our new Cujo 24...


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## svinyard (Aug 14, 2017)

TimTucker said:


> Quick question for anyone who has the 24 and some spare wheels lying around -- any idea if a 26" will fit, and if so how big?
> 
> Debating some different options for our new Cujo 24...


Won't fit a 26" wheel/tire imo. I don't have a fingers clearance on our 24" with 24" DHF.


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## TimTucker (Nov 9, 2011)

svinyard said:


> Won't fit a 26" wheel/tire imo. I don't have a fingers clearance on our 24" with 24" DHF.


Thanks -- that's kind of what I was afraid of.

Think I'll probably put on CST Fringe 24x2.8 on here for now and revisit the idea of switching to 26 and/or adding suspension back on in the spring. Hopefully there'll be good deals on the older Junit forks sometime between now and then.

For our local trails it may even do better than most of the 26" tires I've been looking at -- 25.5" outer diameter isn't that much smaller, it's a very fast rolling tread, & 620g is on par with all but the lightest options.

Just wish they offered them in 120tpi folding instead of just 60tpi wire bead.


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## Leh Cycling (Jun 14, 2021)

REPOST:

So in my deep internet searching it seems like a lot of people have hands on experience with this fork.

I have rebuilt a few other forks successfully but this one is giving me trouble.

I have a Junit Machete 20" that came set up as 120mm. I have a custom made bmx frame that I had made heavily influenced by the Fingers Crossed BMX project going on. Despite my 155lb weight the fork performed fantastic out of the box

I've been riding the bike as a 120mm fork with the pressure set very low to over come the excessive slack in the frame design. about 50% sag. This worked fantastic when riding at my local MTB park however the recoil traveling all the way out of 120mm made the bike jump really weird.

So after 4 months I decided to take the fork apart and adjust the travel, hopefully make it stronger and more progressive as a shorter fork. The fork externals say that the travel is 100mm-120mm. You could get it in 100mm or 120mm stock however the manual on the Manitou fork says you can adjust the travel down to 80mm and the spacers to do so where included.

I took the fork apart cleaned everything and reassembled. Now I'm having tons of issues with the negative pressure. I read on a number of other posts that this fork has a two level air fill port and that the pump needs to be seated super far down to allow air to pressurize both the + and - chamber. Here's the catch, I think it's possible/likely I may have damaged the air valve in the process of removing the fork lowers. I didn't have a "thin walled socket" so I used the 4mm hex to finish the job by rotating the last few turns. This was mentioned on one of the other posts about this fork as an alternative. However I think I may have damaged the top of the air spring valve enough to where I can't compress the pin in the valve to fill the positive chamber and the shock is only filling the negative air chamber. The valve isn't leaking however the valve pin does seem to get stuck down and needs to be manually pulled up to about 1.5mm above the threaded top of the valve.

Now the fork is "sucked down" about 20%of the total 80mm travel and the fork clearly does not have positive pressure. Basically I get on the bike and it bottoms out to 0 travel and rebounds back extremely slow if at all. The amount of pressure I put in the shock doesn't change the sag at all. It feels like It's filling both cambers equally if that makes sense and it's just dampening up and down from the middle point. I tried the zip tie trick. I tried the pulling on the fork legs to release the neg camber pressure. I rebuild the entire air spring a 2nd time and cleaned up and re greased everything. Same thing....

So here's my questions.

1. Can you actually set the JUNIT up as 80mm or is it only 100mm or 120MM?

2. Did I totally **** my air spring by pressing in the valve too far when I used the 4mm allen? Or is this just a function of the small amount of wear on the end of the valve pin not allowing the pump to press the valve down enough to fill the positive chamber. I'm using a FOX analog shock pump. I was thinking about trying to add a tiny droplet of epoxy to the end of the pin to give my shock pump a little more room to push down the pin.

3. What is the proper replacement air spring for this fork and can I upgrade it with other models? The manual lists 

KIT, EXPERT AIR, 32MM 20" 80/120 141-36683-K005 
However I can't seem to find that replacement part listed on any site.

4. Has anyone used this kit in their J unit? Is there an option where I can replace the J unit's air spring top cap with one with a Positive pressure valve rather than relying on the single two way valve on the bottom? I'm searching for a good way to make the fork more progressive. Dorado Incremental Volume Adjust (IVA) Replacement / Upgrade Kit

Anyway I hope others who have dealt with this fork can help out.


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## jaybert (Sep 10, 2020)

Leh Cycling said:


> REPOST:
> 
> So in my deep internet searching it seems like a lot of people have hands on experience with this fork.
> 
> ...


My son's Nukeproof cub scout 20" came with a JUNIT fork set to 80mm stock.

"Manitou Machete JUNIT 20" Expert Air, 80mm Travel, 1.5 Tapered Steerer, 40mm Offset, BOOST 15x110mm Bolt-thru Axle "
from Nukeproof Cub Scout 20


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