Sun, 01 Aug 1999 20:57:50 +0200 - Message No. 6118
From: Christian

Subject: Fork problems


Hi folks !

A few days ago, there was a discussion about front fork problems,
especially about bad damping in medium speeds (up to 80 km/h). My
problem seems to be the same, the fork doesnīt respond to the small
bumps, the tire has to do the damping and the bike starts shaking up and
down a little, but this is happening all the time and it`s extremely
uncomfortable to ride.
People were talking about bad fork oil, also about misalignment of the
fork tubes by wrong wheel mounting. But my fork seems o.k., there are
progressive fork springs already mounted and the seals look quite good,
so do the tubes.And the wheel is mounted completely without any tension
applied to the tubes. Should be o.k.
I also tried the trick with the little oil between the tubes and the
seal rings to smoothen the fork working but without any success.
Is there any solution to this, could it be the bad fork oil ? This would
be a quite cheap and easy to achieve solution, I would prefer this
instead of totally open the fork and replace some of the inner
parts...although my fork oil isnīt that old due to the spring change one
year ago ? I thought about not having completely removed the old thick
oil rest in the tubes. Could this be significant ?
What about a fork change in general ?
Has anyone mounted (or driven) a White Power fork on an AT ? What was
the result? Any alternatives (XR fork, Marzocchi ?...)
This would be the best choice, I guess.
The tuning springs in the fork arenīt that much stronger than the old
ones, wich were already progressive-like, at least there were two parts,
a short soft one, and the long one a bit harder.

I miss the adjustment possibility of the fork very badly.
Any comments ?

CHRIS



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