Finish of the Commando fork yokes

powerdoc · Nov 13, 2011

So looking at the fork yokes they look like they were just painted silver and the silver paint is of course about gone and rusting. Is this true? Has anyone changed the finish by plating or is just smoothing down and repainting the ticket?

batrider · Nov 13, 2011

They were kind of a matte silver almost gray. Silver alone is too shiny. Next time I will try powdercoating them.

Rohan · Nov 13, 2011

Not sure what year your bike is, but if not the earlier black ones they were just painted a silver grey - as said - over the rough as-cast steel of the yokes too.

powerdoc · Nov 13, 2011

Has anyone done any plating of these rather than painting them?

debby · Nov 13, 2011

powerdoc said:
Has anyone done any plating of these rather than painting them?

CNW gets them chromed on the bikes they build. Looks pretty good. You have to do some metal finishing to get them nice and smooth before the plating.

I had mine powder coated gloss black. I think they look great. 8)

Debby

Flo · Nov 13, 2011

My 750 are chromed, but they were not smoothed off before plating. I originally thought they were painted until I looked closely. I think they are hard chromed.
Years ago, I had my 850 yokes, engine plates, swinging arm etc. chromed. It all fell off, so went back to plated.

tylerdntexas · Nov 13, 2011

I have a couple sets of original paint fork yokes for Mk2 and Mk3 kicking around out in my garage. They were just painted silver about like what you get from a spray can. Mexican chrome I call it. When I built up my Mk3 20+ years ago I wirebrushed the yokes and resprayed them. Except for a little rust at the top yoke under the rubber cover for the fork lock, they're about as good as when they were new.[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbVKRLFW2tg[/video]

DogT · Nov 13, 2011

I had mine powder coated 'Chrome'. I think the color is close to the original silver but all in all it looks better.

Here's how it looked original.

The bridge on the front fender was painted the same color, so I had it powder coated the same color.

Dave
69S

Powereng03 · Nov 14, 2011

Here is what mine look powder coated black. I have also heard of getting them Cadnium plated as well to resemble the origional finish.

Flo · Nov 14, 2011

Metalic silver & laquered

snakehips · Nov 14, 2011

I replaced mine last year with "genuine" ones and they were powdercoated silver. Had I not been in a hurry for them though they would have had the lot back as finish was poor with some of the top yoke being smooth and some having an orange peel/hammered effect also the time it took to remove the masking material and then clean up all the rust that was underneath that was not inconsiderable and the ones I was replacing that I had painted silver years before looked far better. :cry:

ctsbc · Nov 14, 2011

I used the high temp paint that OldBritts recommends for the cases. I followed the guidelines by heating the yokes three times using my BBQ. Finish looks great and so far provids a surface that stands up to normal wear and tear.

Tom

Orsonoce · Nov 14, 2011

ctsbc said:
I used the high temp paint that OldBritts recommends for the cases. I followed the guidelines by heating the yokes three times using my BBQ. Finish looks great and so far provids a surface that stands up to normal wear and tear.

Tom

is there a link you can point me to?

Niagara850 · Nov 14, 2011

I used a rattle can of VHT High Temperature Caliper Paint - Cast Aluminum and baked them in the oven according to the can directions. Saw it somewhere in a thread in this forum. They came out nice, seems to be durable. I did the front plate of the airbox too.

Finish of the Commando fork yokes

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