Not sure how this should be on fork assembly

I am completely reassembling my forks on a 73 850. Not sure how the steel bush should be in the slider. I am using new tubes/stanchions and new bushings (steel and bronze) and new seals. What sort of fit should the steel bushing be in the slider? Right now the steel bush on the tube is very tight in the slider. I have cleaned everything up real good. Do I need to hone the slider since it was corroded inside before clean up?

Hydraulically tight but mechanically free to slide. Might have an out of round situation, so maybe ink the bush and see what rubs to remove or shape back round.
Dicy to remove meat from slider as hard to replace, though now there are kits out
to renew the slider bores and bottom bush. Might roll the stanchion against each other to verify they are true or might cause bind of alignment not fit space.

Thanks hobot, the new steel bushing were .002 big so I put the old ones back in and it seems to work OK.

Yes, sounds like normal standard Commando protocol, half the time the old worn parts works or fits better than the new ones. In my Ms Peel's case I've gotten two new sets of top bushes but the decades old ones fit rather better each time. ugh.

The other half of the time, none of it works out as advertised.

hobot said:

Yes, sounds like normal standard Commando protocol, half the time the old worn parts works or fits better than the new ones. In my Ms Peel's case I've gotten two new sets of top bushes but the decades old ones fit rather better each time. ugh.

The other half of the time, none of it works out as advertised.

Click to expand...

I heard someone say, I think at a Norton rally, that it was critical that the steel bush be free to rotate on the fork tube, that rapid wear of the slider would occur if it were too tight on the fork tube. I've always followed this advice and always check the fit when I've gotten new bushes in a rebuild kit, and have reused my old ones when the new ones seemed too snug.

I'd imagine that this steel bush in an aluminum slider would pretty much last forever, unless water got in and rusted it. I can't image that this bush would ever really rotate in use, maybe what's important that bush be a free enough fit on the slider so that it doesn't get cocked in the slider.

Sometimes new top bushes are a bit too snug at first and you have stiction until they break in after a couple hundred miles. I don't think this causes a problem, although you might want to change your fork oil after they're broken in.

-Eric

Most new top bushes are not really round, so instead of wearing them down to fit, might try placing over stanchion and lightly rapping around them for nice surprise how easy they may slip and slide on and off.

Steel bushes I've encountered were all free to spin on stanchion, didn't know if that was normal or not.

My new steel bushes were way too tight also. I used my old ones. But they were tight on the new stanchions, so I relieved the stanchions with Emory until they would turn smoothly by hand. The new bushes, one was fine, the other was out of round and easily measured with the verniers, Mike at Walridge sent me a new one and it was fine. I really couldn't tell the difference in clearance between the old and new bronze bushes. Didn't know about knocking them about at the time, next time I'll try that. they don't seem to have any stiffness to them at this point, but not on the road yet.

Dave
69S

Dave, after you get top bushes to slide nice and slick and easy, next test for how much slack felt in tipping them on the stanchion, to mimick road loads passing thru.
Not sure anything to be done about that - just something to be aware of and sorta monitor for future wear tear estimates.

I've found that on different brands of fork tubes the groove for the steel bushes will vary. I ordered a pair of tubes from Frank's Forks once and took my old tube with me to their shop, isn't that far from me. Sure enough the new groove was too tight. They enlarged the groove on the spot to match my old tube so the new bushes would fit. If it doesn't sit in the groove far enough it will be tight in the slider. My .02.


Tim_S

"Yes, sounds like normal standard Commando protocol, half the time the old worn parts works or fits better than the new ones. "

Boy, ain't that the truth. I have had consistently poor luck with new parts actually fitting without considerable "re-working."