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CB350/400 / CB400 Forks
« on: June 28, 2020, 09:00:05 PM »
Hi,
First I'm going to apologise, I found a thread some time back that ended around 2018/19 and was hoping to resurrect the conversation as my issue is of a similar ilk but I've spent a good hour trying to find it and had to give up!
I put the front wheel back of my '76 CB400 onto the spindle, arranged all the parts and low and behold there was about 1/4 inch gap between the left fork leg and the speedo drive (see picture 1). The front fender and brake ass. all fit to the right although the calliper is ridiculously close to the spokes (see picture 2). Not sure if this is right?
The chap in the previous thread eventually decided to clamp the forks together from the other side, much to everyone else's dismay for obvious safety concerns! I've twisted the forks in the yokes and the spindle end didn't appear to move any closer to the drive, I've taken the forks off and tried rolling them along a surface with a light behind and there was no discernible bend, I've loosened them in the yokes and pumped the front down to try to settle the alignment etc etc. The only slight hint of a bend I could see was by holding both stanchions together and whilst they were touching at one end, at the other there was no more than a millimetre between them - no idea if this could cause 1/4 inch movement at the spindle but it seems unlikely?
There are, however, scratches to the surface of the stanchions at the end nearest the spindle (see picture 3 and 4) indicating they're rubbing against something, does anyone know if these scratches would indicate a bend in one or both forks?
I can obviously get new stanchions but they're pretty costly and I'd rather not only to find they're not the problem so I now come to my main questions:
Is there another 'del boy' style garage technique I can use to see if my stanchions are bent? Or a way to see if the lower part of the fork is the issue?
Does any one know of a similar style of front end that would be a direct replacement? Ideally one that I could continue to use my wheel and hub with so just the forks and TT and ideally something I don't need to sell a kidney for.
Thanks very much in advance for anyone's help, and again very sorry if I'm missing a thread of the same topic!
First I'm going to apologise, I found a thread some time back that ended around 2018/19 and was hoping to resurrect the conversation as my issue is of a similar ilk but I've spent a good hour trying to find it and had to give up!
I put the front wheel back of my '76 CB400 onto the spindle, arranged all the parts and low and behold there was about 1/4 inch gap between the left fork leg and the speedo drive (see picture 1). The front fender and brake ass. all fit to the right although the calliper is ridiculously close to the spokes (see picture 2). Not sure if this is right?
The chap in the previous thread eventually decided to clamp the forks together from the other side, much to everyone else's dismay for obvious safety concerns! I've twisted the forks in the yokes and the spindle end didn't appear to move any closer to the drive, I've taken the forks off and tried rolling them along a surface with a light behind and there was no discernible bend, I've loosened them in the yokes and pumped the front down to try to settle the alignment etc etc. The only slight hint of a bend I could see was by holding both stanchions together and whilst they were touching at one end, at the other there was no more than a millimetre between them - no idea if this could cause 1/4 inch movement at the spindle but it seems unlikely?
There are, however, scratches to the surface of the stanchions at the end nearest the spindle (see picture 3 and 4) indicating they're rubbing against something, does anyone know if these scratches would indicate a bend in one or both forks?
I can obviously get new stanchions but they're pretty costly and I'd rather not only to find they're not the problem so I now come to my main questions:
Is there another 'del boy' style garage technique I can use to see if my stanchions are bent? Or a way to see if the lower part of the fork is the issue?
Does any one know of a similar style of front end that would be a direct replacement? Ideally one that I could continue to use my wheel and hub with so just the forks and TT and ideally something I don't need to sell a kidney for.
Thanks very much in advance for anyone's help, and again very sorry if I'm missing a thread of the same topic!