I have recently disassembled my suspension fork and found an extraterrestrial piece of rubber in the coil spring. After some highly accurate measuring it was safe to say that this rubber piece is actually preventing the spring to compress properly. I have removed the thing and the measured travel of my suspension fork doubled from 45mm to ~90mm. I didn't yet have the opportunity to test how it works out on the trails, however.
Do you know what this thing and it's purpose is? If it actually has a purpose, would it be a dumb idea to cut it in half so that it doesn't reduce travel?