Fork swap sketchy
 

Hi all. I got my hands on a Giant Boulder and took off the super low end suspension fork and replaced it with a rigid that I had laying around. I tried to reuse all the parts that came off the bike but wound up with two rubber washers that didn’t seem to fit right. They would wind up squished a protruding, like. Bad-back disc. It made the front end squishy and unstable. So I heated them since they were “part of” the suspension for that I removed. I installed the non-rubberized rigid fork and when I tighten the stem nut it goes from “totally sloppy” to “no free rotation” and never hits that sweet spot where it “works right”. Any thoughts?

Are these headset seals you're describing? How did you move the crown race from the old fork to the new one?

I would think that they were, but when I tried to put them in there I got the sqishing out the sides. The rigid fork had a fixed shelf on the steering tube shaft. This now directl abuts the non-ball bearing surface of the bottom headset bearing, the ball bearings facing “up” into the head tube.

A photo of the parts assembled and disassembled would help us see what's going on. Might be an incompatible headset or installed wrong or ??

LOL, yea those are the so things I was thinking, leaning more twos the later to be honest. I’ll try to get some pics later on

Sounds like the headset might not be installed properly. Did you swap the crown race from the old fork to the new?

Echoing the others here, it sounds more like a headset or assembly problem than a fork problem.

FWIW the frame and headset only care about the fork from the crown up. What's below, rigid, suspension or otherwise doesn't factor. except for blade/stanchion length to preserve overall geometry.

The squishy rubber things are seals, they may not fit the rigid fork properly, also, unless you are sure they are the same, you have to move over all the headset parts.

Caged Bearings right side up?

Give me $2 on he didn't parlayed with incorrect assembly.

Hey, maybe the crown race didn't get moved.