No More Judder !!!!!

19500 miles. -
forks rebuilt, reworked , and massaged a couple times but damnit if there still isn't something wrong. Judder was the only thing i could think to describe it  JUDDER - a vibration between 2 surfaces causing a vibration in a single direction.   after some thought  I decide to pull the front apart and look to see the condition of the steering head bearings. Wholly molly  the front was a littly muddy but i have to wonder if any grease was ever added to these bearings ? both top and bottom were dry.

I was kinda disappointed with this. So Should I install new balls ? or Tapered rollers. After thinking back to earlier installs in previous bikes and the bennefits I decided on the tapered rollers

new bearings installed. Guess what ? No More judder steering smooth as butter !!!!  crazy 3 year old bike with just 20k miles needs new steering bearings...... say la V  on to next project.

FORK update

last update was a refresh of the forks. I tried to document with photos as I went along. shortly after the reassembly i had a couple thoughts of details I forgot to document. First was internal diameter of the valve shims. -  8MM

After a test ride I was still unhappy with the compression. My first thought was to reshim,Guessing based on the already factory installed shim. after a couple days of brewing on this I thought back to an accidental documentaion of a photo I took of the compression valve and its shims.

How does this valve allow any flow at all ? The Base is torqued down with a couple shims to allow minimuim flex. This is where cause for reason meets the old saying " cant get worse than this" 

refrencing the rebound valve i measured out the spacing and delivered to my local machine shop to have the base machined down to allow more flow. 

Before and after. about 10mm machined down to allow the shims to actually flex and flow. but why stop there. The Dr. was already. I noticed the flow out of the compression valve adjuster was minimal so i machined it out a bit to also allow more flow. 

The flow out of the Compression adjustment valve is minimal and flows around the fork internal cartridge so I cut out a little slot to allow more flow. Maybe a fraction but it gives a wider range of adjustment. All in worth the effort. The forks are still firm but way more compliant. What can you really expect from a couple inches of travel.  Seriously though the suspension travel feels more balanced than ever. though the front still had a small suspension travel judder that I couldn't explain after taking the forks back apart. damn the judder was bugging me. Was it something in the fork I missed. ....... ? I rode it for about a month before I realized it want the forks. ---- next post 

I also Added a new preload spacer that would allow me to pull the cap without using a compressor !!!