stiffening up forks

guitargeek wrote:

Time to address one of my pet peeves:

"front forks"

Hmmm...

As opposed to rear forks?

And how many are there? Why is it plural? Shouldn't it be FORK, singular?

Mes nots sures whats yous iss sayings!
Jar Jar Binks:blink:

Or, you could always just wait awhile - soon enough, your back will stiffen up and the fork (Hey Gris) will do a Goldilocks - be juuuuust right...

why not get some longer springs

I almost didn't get the springs back in there, it took a good amount of force. I absolutely dread taking the top back off to add oil. I can't imagine if I had added a spacer in there.

I couldn't agree more about the rear brakes..Get them fixed first.

Just curious, did you have the front wheel off of the ground when you last worked on the fork assembly?

My brakes work great. I just added to the post.
As for my front wheel off the ground, it was leaning against the wall of the carport. I completely removed the fork to rebuild. Why?

For me it really is easier to put stiffer springs or spacers in the fork tubes while they're still on the bike.
I lift the front of the bike off the ground to unload the springs. With the fork assembly still held by the triple tree clamps it allows me to use much more leverage when pushing down on the fork cap while trying to get it started on the fork.
What did you decide, new springs or spacers???

Good luck

I did put the fork back on the bike before putting the springs in.
I think I'll try a heavier weight oil first as it has come highly recommended by a local bike shop. If that doesn't do the trick I'll try and find some progressive springs to replace with.

When I rebuilt my front fork seals (the first time... I will never use aftermarket seals again) I replaced the springs with progressive new springs. I also had a hard time finding 10-20W fork oil as recommended by the service manual. I settled on PJ-1 gold label 15w (figuring halfway between 10-20 was good). As air heats during operation and can change properties I elected to not pump any air into the forks. My bike handles great!

Here is a link to a good write up on motorcycle suspension.

www.directparts.com/static/goose/suspension.htm

Hi Pidaster, I was following the thread to see where this was going, because I feelt my front end was a bit soft. I have the forks dropped about an inch in the triple trees and combined with the clipons there's quite a bit more weight on the frontend then there was in stock trim. I recently changed the fork oil (now CLEAN 15W, god knows what was in there but it was near black) and I felt like my bike was just rocking back and forth, especially with my rear shocks not having the best damping after 30yrs - hum.

I spent an hour on Sunday trying to get a 1" spacer in there and there was just no way, couldn't get the fork caps back on. I ended up trimming the spacer down in stages and finally got about 1/4" in there. I didn't think this was going to be doing much of anything but damn, I can really say it's the best buck I've ever spent!

Where did you put the spacer? Top or bottom of spring?

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