RockShox Monarch R Repair

After muddy  November XCO race I've noticed an air leak of my Norco Sight's rear shock RockShox Monarch R. Total ridden distance of my bike was 1700km.

The shock was loosing air pressure during riding. There was no air leaking while the bike is not in use. I've desided that the problem was in  shock seals, so I've immediately ordered  new seal kit from ChillenGrillen bike store.

When the seals were changed and I began to assemble the shock, I've noticed deep scratches on the shock's rod:

I understood that seal change won't help my shock, so I've decided to polish the shock's rod. I wasn't affraid of screwing up the shock, cause I need another one, with lockout or propedal function.
I wanted to find the reason of these scraches, and I found it. The shock mounting hardware was rusted and was stuck in shock eyelet bushing, that's why my shock experienced bending moment while the suspension was moving.


This problem was solved changing the shock  bushing for Polymer Eyelet Bushing from TFTuned.com. This upgrade made the suspension of my bike work much smoother!

Scratches  on the rod of air shock RockShox Monarch R:

I've started rod polishing with narrow piece of emery paper:

The result after emery paper:

The next step was polishing with felt and special paste

The result:

I've been riding some trails for couple of hours for testing purposes, and I was very surprised that there's no air leak anymore! The suspension of my Norco Sight is working perfectly now!