Coil Over front dampers Series B

vibrac

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Found it!
 

Albervin

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Ah! My apologies time passes. That explains the metric rules, they not a item I generally own!
There must be more photos of my unit somewhere I know the ones in the book are mine I suppose its forum search engine time again to find them.
That is the second time you have done that. I think you need to speak to Angela. :)
 

Oldhaven

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I know Albervin is familiar with my comments about the Works Performance damper conversion I had on my Bramptons, and they are documented in the thread Vibrac noted in #21. If you are thinking of using a Works type design for a new damper then here are a few things I can summarize from my experiences:

The ride is great, It looks like it belongs and is not a Jury rig, and the modification is well worth doing. You do lose the action of the original design of the spring acting on both ends of the travel, so the extension limit is a hard stop at the end of piston rod travel. When the bike front is unloaded the fork will travel to the extension limit due to preload. I did not find this a problem on the road.

The Works shock that was used had to have a 1/2” spacer added internally to limit travel to the allowable range of the forks and to avoid interference with parts of the fork hardware. Another consideration is not to allow the travel on extension to get into ranges that put the lower Brampton link into areas now found unsafe in Girdraulics. This could be designed/built in by shortening the piston rod to the correct length. This would limit use to the front of Bramptons, but there are other good alternatives for the rear damper and Girdraulics. It all fits but clearances are small.

If you read about the broken rod I experienced you will see that the amount the external lower end of the rod was reduced to use 3/8 thread for the lower spring seat and clevis is really not necessary for this use and would be twice as strong by using a 1/2-20 or 12mm thread on the 1/2 rod. I seem to recall that another racer using this shock had a similar break at this spot, so this is worth doing. The rod can also be made of better material, again increasing its strength at a bit higher cost.

I agree that having to use a separate clevis at the bottom is a bit too much of a make do and I like the way it was done by Vincent Brake. If designing from scratch this is easier and looks better.

Don’t forget the lower mount has to pivot. While adding a hook over the original lower spring mount adds a fail safe, it has to be done in a way that allows the lower mounting fork to pivot on its through bolt. I fall into the category that think this fail safe hook is unnecessary since the headlight mount is strong enough.

I figured out a way to mount the headlight stays on an extension from the balance beam mount. This saved having to make the lower stays free to pivot on the damper mount. It also lowered the headlight about an inch, which I found useful for clearance on the top of the bucket for the light switch with a 5” speedo, but longer stays could make up for this if wanting to put the light at original height.

While Works Performance is no longer in business, the family still makes some products for modern bikes under the name of Worx Shocks. the difficult parts of the damper to fabricate, like the piston and its valving, or perhaps the body and end cap, may be available through them. It would be worth asking.

From memory, I think I documented the spring length, strength and wire diameter in the above thread. I take it springs are not that hard to have made. I found some originals on EBay. Adjustable preload solves the rider weight problem, though sidecar springs could be made too.

That’s about all I can think of right now. I have the damper apart for repairs right now, if pictures are needed.

Ron
 
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