fork oil and fork alignment checking device pictures

[martin polach]

It was -20c (-4 F) yesterday so went bicycling instead......Rode 30 km (18.6 miles) ...warm going up..(mtn road to a mine site) but 'fricken' cold coming down! Cheers Martin (From the truly frozen Great White North!) [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Jeff Saline]

Listers, I think it was last week there was a question on the list asking if it was necessary to change suspension fluid. I'm currently working on the forks on my 1979 R100RT that I rebuilt three years or so ago. But the bike hasn't been started or ridden until a few weeks ago. It's been a 5 1/2 year project since I bought it. I've posted four pictures to the group photo site in a folder called "Forks" or maybe it was "Fork". The oil in the drain pan was only in the forks for 72 miles. The drain pan was clean when the fork oil was collected. You might come to the conclusion that forks with 15,000 miles have fork oil dirtier than what's shown in the photo. Those forks were completely disassembled, cleaned, new parts installed as needed and reassembled before the new fork oil was added. The next three pictures are of a device I'm just finishing making to check fork tubes to see if they are parallel. The block and rod are aluminum and home made. The indicator holder was purchased from ENCO. www.use-enco.com . The device in the photo is specific to 36mm fork tubes as that's what I normally work with on older BMW Airheads. I'll probably make one for the KLR forks next time I mess with mine. That might just be in the next month or so. The way you use the device is to set it so the indicator is close to the center of one fork tube. Then without putting undue pressure on the other fork slide the device from top to bottom. Watch the indicator to see if the forks are parallel. If they are you should be low on stiction. If they aren't you'll have forks that won't work correctly. In the case of the R100RT the tubes are parallel until I add the stock fork brace/fender mount. Then they are pushed out about 0.010". The first time I rode this bike a few weeks ago I commented to some friends that this was the hardest front suspension on any airhead I've ever ridden. When I got to checking it, with the springs out of the forks I could lift the front wheel to the top of the suspension travel and let go. It would stay there. Tomorrow I'm hoping to fix the stiction problem and move on to another bike. Best, Jeff Saline ABC # 4412 South Dakota Airmarshal Airheads Beemer Club www.airheads.org The Beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota 75 R90/6, 03 KLR650, 79 R100RT