1970 BSA A65 Forks

I'm getting my A65 back on the road after a far too long layoff. One of the things I'd really like to address is the forks - despite all my efforts in the past, I was never all that happy with them. I've tried different spring rates, oil weights and it was never all that great. Topping out on the rebound and excessive dive were common issues. Is this a case of "they all do that sir"? Thoughts? Any suggested reading?

Many Thanks!

Captain Mandrake said:

I ... Topping out on the rebound and excessive dive were common issues. Is this a case of "they all do that sir"? Thoughts? Any suggested reading? ...

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I have used Race-tech emulators in my 1977 Jap bike to great effect, but not in a brit bike (yet - maybe I'll put some in my OIF Triumph), but you might want to give them a call for more info.

http://racetech.com/page/id/56

http://www.racetech.com/page/title/Emulators-How They Work

Thanks for the suggestion - looks interesting. They didn't list the A65 but did for the 441 Victor, so it may be possible.

Captain Mandrake said:

I'm getting my A65 back on the road after a far too long layoff. One of the things I'd really like to address is the forks - despite all my efforts in the past, I was never all that happy with them. I've tried different spring rates, oil weights and it was never all that great. Topping out on the rebound and excessive dive were common issues. Is this a case of "they all do that sir"? Thoughts? Any suggested reading? Many Thanks!

Click to expand...

Have you tried contacting Greg Fauth at Decent Cycles? He's got a lot of knowledge on BSA A65's and fork upgrades.
www.decentcycles.com

These forks were used on Triumph's and BSA's up to about 1970 for the 650's. I have a 1970 500 that uses them. One thing that gets cocked up on these is the little plastic sleeve that goes in the slider below the seal holder, if this is put in upside down, the forks will be prone to topping out.
Also latter version were fitted with a shuttle valve, this goes in the lower section of the stanchion. This gave some sort of rebound dampening. Maybe a bit of fine tuning with the original parts will get a reasonable result?

Cheers Richard

The little plastic sleeve... In the past I've tried it both ways, I believe, with more or less the same results. If you could refresh my memory, ahould the inner ridge be closer to the top or bottom?

Many Thanks

Thick end of sleeve points down.

The damper sleeve should be a neat/tight fit in the slider and a sliding fit on the stanchion.

If you mean the type with steel sliders, I have had two sets of these forks. The first on a 1969 Lightning & latterly on a 1969 Trident. IMO they are at best poor. The best thing to do is send them to Maxton Engineering in England. They only need the sliders, seal holders, stanchions and top nuts. Everything else is thrown away. A bit pricey but that is soon forgotten when you feel how good these forks can be.

Regards,

Martyn.

Racetech emulators are a one size fits all solution, there are not cheap and the springs are very expensive. Cost in parts was about £200 + hours of time and I did not end up with forks that worked to my satisfaction.

I had very poor results with a 75 airhead. Had to modify a set of damper rods, which made it expensive to go back to stock.

Racetech base line set up info was incorrect.

If you are happy enough to spend hours trying different fork oil levels, preload emulator spring settings and fork spring preload then go with Racetech.

There is a XS650 guy based in holland who sells a non Racetech emulator for about 50% of the racetech price, worth looking at if your are going down this route.