at what thickness is everyone replacing the dupont sliders?

[rx1 man 04]

just checked my sliders, used a metric open end wrench, 15 mm wrench will not fit in slider yet but getting close. at what thickness is everyone replacing them, seen a lot of suggested numbers on this site. 10,12,14 mm etc.

 

[Blue Dave]

I just replaced my Dupont slides last night. They were worn in a couple of spots to the point where the Vespel inserts had fallen out. The overall thickness where the inserts had fallen out was 15 mm. The new slides are 20 mm thick overall. Therefore the inserts themselves are 5 mm thick and the slide should be replaced at 15 mm overall thickness. Once the inserts fall out you still have about 5 mm of base material left so you can safely run them down to 15 mm overall thickness before replacement.

 

[Bigblue1]

Great question. My slides look relatively new with 1100 miles on them. We had a lot of snow last year but seems crazy they would last that long.

 

[Sasquatch]

I just ran mine till the last two inserts started to come out. I was down to 14mm wrench fit at the back idler on my XTX and 16mm at the middle and ran for another 5 to 600 miles checking them after every ride, till I checked and I had lost two inserts on one side and one on the other. Not sure how much further you could go. Would depend on the snow or lack of same. I would look at it as if I was planning a trip I would change them at 15mm and start over otherwise short trips I would just keep an eye on them! I was somewhere between 3,500 and 4,000 when I changed them, still could not get a 15mm wrench up further on the Dupont and even though I had lost a couple inserts I would have ran them further but had a trip planned so I replaced them. If they added two more inserts to take the vespel back to the last idler I think I could get at least a thousand more. As it is just before the last idler is where most of the wear occurs and you toss the slides while the rest of it is still in good shape.

This last set looks like new still with around 3,000 miles on them. What a difference a snow year makes!

 

[Blue Dave]

As I said in my earlier post, the Vespel inserts will start to fall out when the overall thickness wears down to 15 mm.

As far as how many miles it takes to wear them down from 20 mm to 15 mm that depends upon some different variables such as the conditions in which you ride and the track that you have.