Forks Oil

[Jules]

thanks JUlian, are they a straight add in or are mods required, I haven't finished putting my '56 forks together so maybe its a good opportunity...do you know who stocks them too? cheers

[JulianS]

You may need to fettle. Slide the top bush into the fork leg and check that the spacer bears on it.

Top bushes vary in thickness of flange. You can see in the photo. When assembled as above the spacer bears on the bush on the right, but use the bush on the left there is a gap which would need a shim. You may see a small gap between bottom of oil sealholder and fork bottom with a spacer fitted.

I would think that any ofmthe big dealers might have the spacer.

[chaterlea25]

HI All,

Julian,
On my SR and other BSA's that I have fitted the damper to, I increased the amount of oil volume so the damper valve 
sits in the oil at all times
I found that I had to reduce the oil viscosity to 10 weight
It was only in the last few days that I got to thinking about the rod length on the TD damper and whether the length
was to suit the forks with longer bushes fitted ???

John

[JulianS]

First attempt at pattern Dow dampers was that the valve did not quite reach the oil. Used more oil but still not happy.

Second attempt was an auto jumble purchase of a complete kit - yoke, extended bushes, complete dampers etc. No longer have either but memory is that the second set had longer rods. Worked fine on compression but stll had the clang on extension, tried more oil, thicker oil but it still happened and I thought that perhaps what was happening was that on extension, oil was being drawn through the 2 drillings in the fork shafts from the space between the bushes.........

Anyway I really wanted them to work but could not get them to work as I wanted so first my local motorbike enthusiast engineer converted the A10 fork bottoms to accept A65 damper rod internals, this worked fine but splitting mudguard and some corrosion to studs resulted in me transplanting a complete set of damper rod forks from a 1968 Lightning which was a lot more expensive unfortunately.

Has anyone sen or used the Webco dampers in second photo. Sorry about the quality. Looks like they screw in to replace the bottom bush retaining nut. Seen in the 1961 Webco catalogue.