There were three guys working on this kit. We talked and looked,
And looked some more. First stage, strip down forks to one
fork stanchion, one slider, one steel bushing with clip to retain,
one high hat bush, one seal and one seal retainer assemble dry
At this point. Check travel, got six inches plus with no dampener tube, valve, rod or springs. Ok second stage, add stock dampener tube with valve supporting rod, tube cap, spring, stock spacer, jam nut. No fork cap nuts or fluid so when you slide this back and forth the spring assemblies are coming in and out of the top of the fork stanchions tops. The travel was:
Four and one half inches. Note that in this state the springs
are loaded against the top of the dampener tube caps and are
trapped by the jam nuts and spacer on the other end so the
Dampener valve is tight up to the cap. Until the bike is full
assembled with the Dampener rod jam nut tight to the fork caps
and the weight of the rider is felt the valve is always going
To stay there up against the cap. The stock length of the rod
Is limiting the distance the sliders can move. Do the same
test with two inch longer rods and an extra set of springs
For preload and you get back the six inches of movement. The
true limit, the max to be had, is when the top of the steel
Bushing hits the bottom of the high hat. Now you don't want to
ride the bike in this state with the two bushes tight to one
another there's just not enough support and the front tire
Will bounce back and forth at stop lights. So we came up with
the two inch longer modification for the one and one half
inches of travel gain so that under no circumstances could
the dampener valve be used to limit the travel for this we
wanted a fluid stop and not a one and one half long loose
fitting bushing between the two bushings already in the front
End like the Covenant kit has. The springs that come with the
kit are from Ford tractors and are the same O.D. and I.D. as
Norton and Progressive springs. They start with a two and
nine sixteenths free length and have a bound length of one
And nine sixteenths for one inch of travel. From what we have
read because this is a hard test to perform the stocks spring
have one half of an inch to go with the slider bottomed out,
that is the bottom of the stanchion hits the bottom of the
Slider. We add one and one half of travel with longer rods
and the extra spring adds one inch and the old springs had
one inch to go so the springs should bottom out just as the
Fork stanchions do. Now for the fluid control if thinks were ideal
one would have full movement with hydraulic stops at each end
That is nice and slow acting right at the ends of travel.
The best we have come up with so far is using ATF for fluid
and leak proof brand seals it works on seven bikes so far
with no adjustments needed not that there are no
Adjustments. I have one bike with stock springs and one with
progressive springs and I have to say that I find the
Progressive better but the stock springs work well too. On
the center stands these modified bikes don't lift the wheels
Of the ground any more but still work for me. The idea is to
get the bike to go down from your weight at least one and one
Half inches. Than ride around with four and one half potential
Inches for bumps and the one and one half for pot holes. Here's a picture
http://groups.msn.com/Brit-Fe-Pics/shoe ... hotoID=169
norbsa
