FOX DHX Rear Shock Damper Rebuild Kit: Rider Review

Our "Rider Review" article series features the honest reviews from verified purchasers of Worldwide Cyclery. They contain the photos, thoughts, feedback & overall review you are looking for. 

Fox's DHX2 has held its spot as what we would consider to be the most popular coil sprung rear shock. Although coil shocks tend to represent the whole set it and forget it type vibe. You still have to rebuild them after some extensive use! Our buddy Patrick recently serviced his DHX2 with Fox's DHX Rebuild Kit. Lets see what he thought!

Patrick's Review:

I bought a lightly used 2019 Fox DHX2 in June of 2019 and installed it on my 2017 Santa Cruz Bronson in place of a DPX2. I love the feel of this coil shock and I will have a hard time ever going back to an air shock. It has great small bump compliance and makes the rear wheel feel glued to the ground. About a month ago I noticed my shock was starting to leak a little oil from the main shaft seal. I had put about 1200 miles on it by that point, which was about 150 hours of riding plus whatever the previous owner had put on it. Fox recommends service every 125 hours, so it was no surprise that it was leaking, and it was obviously overdue for service.

In order to perform service on the DHX2, I had to purchase the following items:

The rebuild kit includes all o-rings and seals required for a full teardown and rebuild. There were quite a few items in the kit that I didn’t need. I’m assuming that’s because the kit covers multiple model years and various shock sizes. The bullet tool allows you to slide the new main shaft seal onto the shaft without damaging it on the end of the shaft. I purchased a 32oz bottle of fluid, although the service uses very little of it. I probably won’t ever use it all up. The vise clamps are used to hold the main shaft from rotating while the piston nut is removed from the end of the shaft.

Fox has highly detailed service instructions for the DHX2 on their website. There is also a nice video by kraZeyWorld on YouTube that does a great job of explaining the manual bleeding process. There are many steps to the process, but in the end, it isn’t all that complicated. If you have serviced your forks before, then you should be able to tackle this job. One thing to watch out for is the stack of shims hiding underneath the piston. Make sure you keep them all in the correct order. Fox does have an exploded diagram of the shim stack on their website in case you mix them up. They have shim stack diagrams for light, medium and heavy damping in case you want to modify your shock.

One problem I ran into was with the removal of the locknut that holds the piston onto the end of the main shaft. This locknut just did not want to come off, and it ended up trashing the threads in the process. The replacement shaft I had to order came with a regular non-locking nut, so I’m guessing I’m not the first person to encounter this problem. I used red Loctite on the new nut to make sure it stays in place.

Final Thoughts

The cost of the supplies ended up being about the same as sending the shock into Fox to have them do the service, not including the replacement shaft. Next time I will only need to purchase a rebuild kit though, so I’ll be ahead at that point. It also saves me from the hassle of having to package and ship the shock, and downtime is minimized.