What to do with ...

[tufty]

… a pair of godawful forks?

So, I skipfound a Scott frame* the other day, brought it home for the bars and shifters attached to it. Attached to the front end was a rather unpleasant boinger, a pair of Manitou Axel "Comp**" forks. Which appear to have been treated with all the respect they deserve.

Having stripped it down and removed the horrible sludge from the "damping" part, it's not in that bad a nick. But, well - it's still horrible. So, I figured I'd take the CSU to work and push the steerer out on the press, the steerer is cut at 200mm+ and I could probably use it. But a stupid idea came to me - could I turn it into a set of decent forks? I have a lathe, I could make up adjustable compression and rebound dampers, new top plugs, find or make new seals and bushings, and air-spring it.

What do you reckon? At the moment, Pressy McPressFace is winning.


* A 2005 Yecora, horrible fat ugly thing, I can see why it got chucked. Blech!
** "Comp" meaning "you can only adjust the compression", not "competition", obviously

 

[02gf74]

I would vote air spring. You have a challenge plus a usable set of forks afterwards.

What makes you think the pressed out steerer will be usable in other fors, are the the same diameter at the vrown, probably not. Plus having a lathe you could always turn a steel or alloy tube to required diameter for a steerer.

 

[tufty]

What makes you think the pressed out steerer will be usable in other fors, are the the same diameter at the vrown, probably not.

Probably yes, actually. Most steerers have 2 diameters along their length : the steerer / clamp diameter (28.6 mm in this case for a 1 1/8" steerer) and the crown race internal diameter (30.015 mm for 1 1/8"). The part that fits in the crown is basically that 30.015mm, usually plus ~0.2mm made up by knurling. That's why, for example, RST steerers sell so well - file or turn off the 5 thou of knurling, and they go into (for example) Marzocchi bolt-fit crowns a treat. The alloy ones go straight in.

That said, given that an alloy RST steerer only goes 20-30 euros and a steel one comes in under a ten spot, I'm tempted by the "make an air fork" option.

There's also the "dont be so frickin' stupid, bin the crappy things" option, but ...