Fork me? Fork you! (Red)

In addition to getting the motor into the frame, I began working putting the front-end back together. We’ll put this post in the “things that always look easy on YouTube” pile.

I guess it’s not surprising that Red and its quarter-million miles would have some front end issues with more components than just the top plate. I am, of course, complicating things a bit by adding the ToasterTan top-brace to the equation. This adds some changes to the overall geometry, which is a problem for later.

Initially, getting things back together feels straight forward. 

• Install steering head bearings
• Instal lower fork clamp and steering post
• Install fork tubes
• Install top yoke or clamp

For giggles, I installed the fork sliders and brace at this point. I was curious how well it would come together and tested for stiction. Not well, it turns out. Pairing new fork tubes with old sliders, high mileage lower clamp and brace hardware was not a recipe for immediate success. The sliders would barely move and quickly bound up. Tearing it all down and taking all the measurements was quite revealing.

The tubes were out of parallel in both the axial and longitudinal planes. Measuring their distance form each other, they were .009″ closer at the bottom than at the lower clamp. Testing the plane using the Brook Reams glass method showed each tube having a significantly different rake angle from each other. Time for a lot of bracing and waiting. After a few applications, I got the gap to about .001″ from top to bottom and the rake-plane was showing no detectible gaps with the glass test.

While I had the forks braced up, I began to tackle another issue I found in the sliders. That being the clearance with the axle. The axle should slip into and out of the fork sliders easily and rotate with simple hand strength. Red’s was binding completely. 

Taking a close look at the sliders, it appears that the pinch bolts were either tightened without the axle inserted at some point, or were perhaps damaged a bit while off at the sand blasters. I recall the axle being tight when I did the initial teardown, but was still able to remove it without significant added force. For that reason, I am leaning towards some mishandling post-teardown.

I spent a good amount of time working out how to address this. In the end, I opted to use the pinch bolts from the back of the slider to press on a washer that was inserted into the gap to interfere with the bolt path. This required some heavy persuasion to create a gap large enough for the washer. Once everything was in place, I tightened the pinch bolts to force more gap into the sliders. After a few passes at this, I was able to ease them open enough to accept the axle as a slightly snug slip fit. So, all seems to be in better order. 

I’ll put it all back together in another few days to try again.