another fork thread

If it's broken or just needs tweaked

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Bohan
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Mar 29, 2015 3:27 pm

another fork thread

Postby Bohan » Wed Jun 17, 2015 4:12 pm

my 650 is a 1980 that came with the long cruiser forks. i wanted more normal looking forks so i cut 3.5" off the springs and put 3.5" spacers between the damper rod and the bottom of the fork tube so they couldn't extend all the way anymore.

i had originally cut only 1.75" off the springs, but the forks were too stiff with that much preload.

now of course the fork tubes bottom out big bumps. i knew it was a possibility. maybe i should have only cut off a little bit more instead of the full 3.5"

so, i need to fix it. i think the spring lengths would be fine if the fork tubes were shorter. that way i wouldn't need to use the spacers and there would be more clearance below the tubes so they wouldn't bottom out.

my options would be to find tubes from a different bike that are the same diameter but ~3.5" shorter. 550? 750? or a complete fork swap, but i'd like to avoid that if i can.

or to cut 3.5" out of the tubes and weld them back together. i have a guy who can do this so i'm not worried about the quality of that kind of weld.

what do you guys think?

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