I ahd to turn the forks upsidedown and give the yoke several good wacks with the hammer in order for the tubes to break free. In doing so, about a half pint of water came pouring out of each tube along with a good amount of rust flakes from the external springs and the tube surfaces.
See for yerself:
From the looks of it, there appears to be some pitting at the top and most of the length of the tubes. I seriously think a regrind would be worth the trouble here, replacement seems to be the best option I'm thinking.
There's also a couple of shots of the front brakes and the bare frame:
The frame has bee stripped right down to the swing arm and just needs to be removed. The front brake shoes look like they still have some lining left but will know more after a good clean up. From the looks of the entire front hub, it will take some cleaning to get it looking good again.
Until the next time....
Oh boy, looks like the seals wouldn't like to run against that. Forking by Franks per chance? I believe the "MC Classics" guys used replacement tubes from Frank's on the Cafe CB-500 they did. If you didn'r care about originality, a 70's disc-brake front-end from a Honda could could be grafted on if you were going for cafe style. I'll keep my eye out for 441 parts at San Jose. Hairy Larry
ReplyDeleteThe seals on the bench next to the legs are from the headlight ears, at the bottom, the rubber parts are shot though. The tubes definitely have had it:(
ReplyDeleteGonna keep it as original as possible. Want it to look as it might've from the dealer, with a few updates.
I got a parts book from Rabers, from what I understand, they're pretty good for parts. Have 'em on my list of sources
Me again, something you might want to do is roll your bare tubes on a flat surface and see how straight they are. If they are'nt ,definitely check your trees and see if they are'nt tweaked. Being that the Victor is a "dirt" bike it may have seen some rugged use. Being steel rather than alloy the trees if damaged can usually be repaired. If the fork tubes were'nt so rusted, even minor bending could have been carefully pressed out. Back in my wrench days we straightened out a lot of front ends and tweaked frames. Off the subject, but your a music fan...have you seen the youtube vid of Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jeff Beck together....rockin'...Hairy Larry
ReplyDeleteFrom the looks of it, other than the heavy rust, everything else looks good, including the trees.
ReplyDeleteI'll have a look for the SRV/Beck video, sounds good