Fork upgrade

stockie2 · Mar 24, 2012

Well, I am ready to test out the latest handy work tomorrow. I have my fancy new Landsdowne dampers in, but have now made up composite Teflon bushes. I had made my own bronze, extended top bushes, so these were cut back in length and bored out to accept a Teflon bush I spun up myself, I left a seat in the bottom and installed a thin washer at the top over the flanged section of the bush, to locate the bush. I inserted the Teflon into the bronze when it was still solid, then drilled and bored the interior to mate up with the 34.5mm forks. The section is pretty thin, but it is well located in the bush, so we will see how it lives. The sliding effect is very good, even with twisted side load it glides, unlike standard sintered bronze. I performed a similar trick on the bottom bush to locate a thin Teflon outer over the original floating bush. Geez the forks feel like those modern bikes now. Also I did the trick with the Honda fit fork seals, one other Forum member wrote about, they are 35mm internal and very slightly larger in od, about .3 of a mm. I made up a little seal holder out of nylon that allowed me to mount the seal in the lathe, without damaging the seal and skimmed off the od to make a nice fit in the Norton slider. These seals certainly slide nicer than original seals.

Well, report back on riding experience after tomorrow's run

Cheers Richard

john robert bould · Mar 24, 2012

Richard, Great to see the lads down under are trying differant idea's. I have just had one of your lads reporting back , he's over the moon with the kit..he now steers into ruts just to get the smile!

303 fmj · Mar 24, 2012

stockie2 said:
Well, I am ready to test out the latest handy work tomorrow. I have my fancy new Landsdowne dampers in, but have now made up composite Teflon bushes. I had made my own bronze, extended top bushes, so these were cut back in length and bored out to accept a Teflon bush I spun up myself, I left a seat in the bottom and installed a thin washer at the top over the flanged section of the bush, to locate the bush. I inserted the Teflon into the bronze when it was still solid, then drilled and bored the interior to mate up with the 34.5mm forks. The section is pretty thin, but it is well located in the bush, so we will see how it lives. The sliding effect is very good, even with twisted side load it glides, unlike standard sintered bronze. I performed a similar trick on the bottom bush to locate a thin Teflon outer over the original floating bush. Geez the forks feel like those modern bikes now. Also I did the trick with the Honda fit fork seals, one other Forum member wrote about, they are 35mm internal and very slightly larger in od, about .3 of a mm. I made up a little seal holder out of nylon that allowed me to mount the seal in the lathe, without damaging the seal and skimmed off the od to make a nice fit in the Norton slider. These seals certainly slide nicer than original seals.

Well, report back on riding experience after tomorrow's run

Cheers Richard

Glad to hear you like the Honda seals. i've been using them for a long-long time now since the mid 80's. I just use some 80 grit on the od to get them to fit.
I also pack the recess area of the seal with silicone grease for lubrication---the stuff BMW used on the early K-bike steering head. I have never had a seal problem
with these. I also use gaiters to protect the fork seal swept area.

Hobot · Mar 24, 2012

Would one of ya send a pn or site with these H--da seals please.
Its an uncanny treat to hunt for ruts and lumps to hardly notice em.

303 fmj · Mar 24, 2012

hobot said:
Would one of ya send a pn or site with these H--da seals please.
Its an uncanny treat to hunt for ruts and lumps to hardly notice em.

the Honda part number is 91255-KBH-003------this is the newest part number--so you should be able to find them easily----they fit many models with 35mm tubes.

stockie2 · Mar 26, 2012

Yes John, the forks are now fantastic, the slipperyness of the teflon really compliments your fine dampers. The best part of this mod is apart from the cool looking top nuts, nobody can understand why the forks work so well compared to standard RH's. I find I can definitely push the bike harder in twisty's. The rear shocks now feel a little inadequate! (Hagon's) But for now I am very happy with the result. Regarding the Showa fit seals, if you have access to a lathe, a nice way to modify these seals to fit in the Roadholders is to make up a collet to machine them on. I used some scrap nylon rod, and just machined a step @ 36mm so the seal can be eased on and machined with light cuts on the rubber.
I am getting some rattling from somewhere, could be the fork springs? But the action is spot on.

Cheers Richard

john robert bould · Mar 30, 2012

Richard, Did you find out what the [spring] rattle is?

stockie2 · Mar 30, 2012

Dear John, Saturday here, so I will take a peek. I used the progressive springs I had, not sure if that compounds the issue? There is 10 inches of damper rod that is available to make a spacer between spring and the rod, my next experiment was to put some nylon in there?

Cheers Richard

Hobot · Mar 30, 2012

MIght just be headlight area rattle, but if spring slack, i highly recommend a stiff spring spacer instead of a solid piece.

Fork upgrade

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