A pick, a T25, a torque wrench, and a little grease. The post never leaves your workbench in pieces.
The color kit swaps the collar and saddle clamp on a Vario Infinite dropper for one of four anodized colors: Intergalactic PVD Blue, Bronze, Naranja Orange, or Eggplant Purple.
It's a straightforward job. The parts that make it fiddly are three small ones that only go back in one orientation, and this guide is mostly about those.
Tools. A pick, a T25 Torx key, a torque wrench that reads 2 Nm with a T25 bit, and a suspension grease. No strap wrench. If you find yourself reaching for one, something is wrong.
Taking it apart
1. Move the clamp nuts over first. Remove the clamp assembly with the T25, take the nuts out of the old assembly, and put them straight into the new one. Doing this now means you are not hunting for them later.
2. Remove the T25 bolt joining the upper assembly to the lower assembly and the cartridge. It is torqued to 2 Nm, so it should not take much force.
There's a small washer under that bolt. Find it before it finds the floor.
3. Unthread the collar by hand. It is only hand tight. Again: no strap wrench.
4. Slide the collar up and separate the upper assembly from the lower.
5. Remove the lower bushing. It is split. Find the split, then ease it out of its slot rather than levering it.
6. Remove the brass keys with the pick. Work carefully here. The pick is the one tool in this job that can scratch the post.
7. Slide the upper bushing and the old collar off the tube.
Putting it back together
The order reverses, but three parts have an orientation. Get these right and the rest follows.
1. Grease the seal lightly and fit the new collar. As it passes over the lower lip of the upper tube, do not let the seal fold over on itself. A folded seal will not seat, and once the collar is on you cannot see it.
2. Fit the upper bushing. It goes on before the keys, because the keys sit under it.
3. Brass keys, buttons facing inward. Each key has a button that engages a hole in the upper tube. Inward. A little grease on the keys helps.
4. Lower bushing, tabs facing down, greased. Two small tabs point toward the bottom of the post, and they sit in grooves in the upper tube that line up with the brass keys. Grease the keys and the bushing. This one has to seat properly or the upper tube will not go back correctly.
5. Reinstall the upper tube, with the lower tube's laser etching to the rear. That etching faces the back of the bike. Two small arrows on either side of the upper tube show where the brass keys align. Push until it bottoms out.
6. Slide the upper bushing down and match the lobes. The bushing has small lobes that engage lobes machined into the upper tube. They line up in one position only.
7. Collar down, hand tight. Threaded metal on a sealed post does not want a tool.
8. Bolt and washer back in, torqued to 2 Nm. Use the wrench. This is the one torque figure in the job and it is low for a reason.
9. Clamp assembly on, arrows forward. The lower clamp carries arrows showing which way is forward. There is a right way round.
Refit your saddle, put the post back in the bike, and you're done.
