Just in the process of replacing the ancient tyres on the old girl and noticed a hairline crack on one of the front axle holders so just wondered if anyone has a spare lying around ??
Also the forks wont hold any air pressure, it just comes straight out, the o rings at the top look Ok but maybe a little hard so was thinking of replacing these. The parts manual says there are 40.5X2mm but ebay is only showing either 40 or 41 mm.
However, the bike has replacement springs in measuring 585mm with no spacer and have a “w12” mark on them.
So I was also thinking of blanking off the air hole in the stanchion ?
Hi Bart,I’m sure we can dig an axle holder out for you I still have your address.
The Orings don’t have a size listed in any of the literature I have,but I have always used 40x2 with no issues.
You could block the air holes off in the stantions if you wanted as it sounds like your springs have been updated so making air preload redundant
Regards Bif
I’ve been pondering the last day or two and have ordered a set of damaged forks off ebay so hopefully the axle holder problem will be solved. I can also look at the springs etc in these as well so if/when I get round to doing some cartridge swaps I have a few spares.
I was also thinking of blocking off the air holes because as you say it looks like the new springs should work Ok without any extra air pressure and at the moment as they have an air leak they have been operating with what would amount to an “infinte air gap”. The sag was a bit on the high side so blocking the air holes will help this.
How have people blocked the holes? I was thinking of a blob of solder, I could braze but didn’t want to put loads of heat into the stanchion.
I’m really looking forward to getting the new rubber on as the existing front is 18yrs old and the rear “only” 14yrs…
Can’t help on the holders or orings, but AFAIK, the fork work done on my bike was mainly blanked anti-dive, a spacer for preload, Wilbers springs and Wilbers fluid.
They feel pretty bloody good too, and fairly well matched to the Wilbers shock in the back.
Hi Bart. . On your question on blanking the air holes off… I once had a set of forks with extra air holes drilled in where somebody had lowered the forks through the sliders… I mig’d mine up but I don’t think that was the best way… I have heard of people cutting a thread in the hole and fitting a small grub screw with gasket sealer on the threads…
I may well end up doing that Pete, however my damaged forks arrived today so had a trial run with solder and it seemed to work, it held pressure. The only problem I can see is if the solder pops out so I can always go down the grub screw route then.
Also been having a mare balancing the carbs, I could get to the rear adjusters OK with a angled screw diver adaptor but No 2 is just soooooo tight and with the FF having the remote adjuster on and mine has extra oil lines in too…
Anyway, a search on here gave the very obvious solution I could kick myself. Turn the engine off and rotate the throttle a bit and the angled screw driver will go on. Maybe a “how too” section could be useful on the site for unimaginative people like me ??
