FF: Forks Modified Steering Stem

vibrac

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Even the original springs I had made which were about 38 to 42 odd pounds per inch, I have had to chop the lot shorter to get the bike sitting right. It was a pair of these springs we used in my friends Comet, and stock Koni shocker on its weakest setting, the bike felt fabulous on the first ride. The pre-load was about 20 mm, we could almost compress the upper spring box by hand and install the upper fixing bolts.
Interesting at 30 lb unhortened springs even no damper my comet wa not the smoothest and with aVo damper very stiff
 

greg brillus

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Springs are still too long...........Too much pre---load. I'll swap you a good set of roadholders for those pesky Girdraulics if you want.............:)............. I don't want to say anything negative, but the AVO on a light bike like a Comet is way too stiff..........I should start charging for all this info...............
 

greg brillus

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Girdraulic's with this mod, way better than Brampton's. I rode three bikes in the one day several times, two Rapide's with Brampton's and a Shadow with Girdraulic's with this mod, the Girdraulics were more comfortable, more controlled and with better travel. You only have to look at Cam Donald's discussions about the Flash, and he is one hell of a rider.
 

Peter Holmes

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Sod the road holders pass me the Brampton's?
Tim, Your fork of choice is obviously Brampton, aesthetically I also prefer them, but how do you control the spring, do you still rely on the friction dampers, or are you using a Woodhead Munroe unit or something along those lines, I guess undamped they would be like riding a pogo stick, and friction damping surely ceases to function well (if they ever did) once contaminated with dirt, water or grease, just interested in your thoughts or solutions.
 

Chris Launders

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I have to agree with Greg on the AVO damper, I run mine on a twin with the damping on the lowest setting, and I'm 130kg, the problem is the AVO for the bushed front end is too soft for the ball bearing front end and the AVO for the bearing front end cannot be softened without an expensive complete re-design, they are totally different dampers internally.
As almost all the testing was done on twins might I suggest perhaps someone will volunteer to try the Bush type damper on a single with the bearing mod and see how it performs.
 

vibrac

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VOC Member
Tim, Your fork of choice is obviously Brampton, aesthetically I also prefer them, but how do you control the spring, do you still rely on the friction dampers, or are you using a Woodhead Munroe unit or something along those lines, I guess undamped they would be like riding a pogo stick, and friction damping surely ceases to function well (if they ever did) once contaminated with dirt, water or grease, just interested in your thoughts or solutions.
Brampton CO.jpg

Courtesy "The Vincnt Black Shadow"
 

macvette

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Non-VOC Member
Mac, some previous owner hasn't packed up the springs previously and left some thing down the lower spring boxes have they ?
No Chris?, I' ve done a lot of measuring, checked the length of the spring boxes with the springs on and off the bike damper connected and disconnected checked the spring strength etc, took advice from Greg the up shot is that today I cut 22mm of one spring and now have about 5mm of compression at the damper under just the weight of the bike on its wheels. Standing by the bike, I can now bounce it up and down where before " up"was impossible. When I sit on the bike I use about 1/4 to 1/3of damper travel. As an aside, I can now remove and replace the damper as I did before doing the mod with the bike on its centre stand wheels on, no ratchet straps. The links look to be in good position so now I just have to try it on the road but I'm now happy with the preload. The spring I shortened could be fitted preloading it by hand
Regards Mac
 
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