531 forks - advice please

[Midlife]

Would rather have 531 forks than carbon or aluminium..........

Shaun

 

[pigman]

Would rather have 531 forks than carbon or aluminium..........

Shaun

Aye, there's aluminium on my frame now, which look a bit, shall we say beaten, and I'm thinking same as you

 

[CyclingTheLakes]

The salty-air did a slight number on my 531 forks, a bit of corrosion, not much on this chrome tipped fork from the 1970s, I have been inspecting the fork to see if something could go wrong, they definitely do have some flex in them I note. I really do think if I wanted to, I could separate the two fork blades but they were probably like that brand new as well. I have been reading up lately on how some sources say it is a good idea to replace forks periodically.

Any advice is appreciated.

The bike in question is a Raleigh all 531 Reynolds and Stronglight crank, so it is a decent bicycle.

 

[CyclingTheLakes]

Adding on, I had a "chrome fork" installed in another bicycle, it must not be a complex or hard thing to do but I'm not sure about this cutting the steerer tube of a new fork. Of course, I'd plan to go retro and thus, threaded. I might have a fork on hand that would fit but that doesn't sound like the proper way to go. I'll probably just hang on to the fork that is on there now.

 

[pigman]

Re:

As this thread has resurfaced, I'll update.

My project bike is a 90's alloy cross bike. So it has beefy forks and with a slack head angle makes the front wheel way out in front and gives heavy unresponsive steering. Anyway, I put my mate's forks on and looking at it side on, the Forks look ever so slightly bent back as though they've had a 'head on. And a fair bit of toe overlap too. Thing is they have transformed the handling of the bike, which now feels great. And the bend-back must have been even to both blades, as it tracks well no-hands. There is no visible creasing, so I can't see any accidental evidence and my workmate has since retired, so I can't ask him what the story might be.

I've taken the view that steel is durable and this little more than accidental cold-setting, so have every intention of continuing to use them as is.

 

[CyclingTheLakes]

Aye, it turns out I do have an old fork on hand, "Trek, Aluminium, Epoxy bound" for whatever Epoxy Bound means and it feels very strong. So, I'm going to watch my current fork but will use this as a replacement as I do see it fits. I'd suppose the rake will work okay, I will see if I ever need to install this fork. It seems even a 40 year old fork needs to be looked at just in case, that's about the age of this fork on the Raleigh.

 

[Wileyone]

Re:

I recently purchased an old Holdsworth 531db one side of the Fork was out 1/8th of an inch from the other. It took 2 of us over an hour in a proper fork jig to get both sides the same. Bullet proof is a vast understatement.