Grad student fork adventure

Ok,

I've gotten the CBR forks apart and cleaned. Well, actually I ran
the recalcitrant leg down to Bloomington Power Sports (thanks guys!)
on my way to the climbing gym and they had it apart in about 2
minutes. The guy came back with it and said "we've put some valve
lapping compound on there for better grip. You really should get new
hardware, as it's pretty messed up." I assured him that I wasn't
planning on using that hardware again. Actually, that socket head
screw is now a 12 point rather than a 6 point! lol

The internals (now clean and wrapped up) appear to be in good shape,
good enough to work, at any rate. I'd sorta like to replace the o-
rings on the cartridges, but I'm not sure whether I can get them
without buying a full revalve kit. Does anyone know whether these
things are available?

My next step is the big one: pull the VFR's forks and do the
transplant. My current plan is to try and crack the lower socket bolt
while the forks are on the bike, then remove and drain them. Once
I've gotten them drained, out come the springs and the damper
cartridge. I think that I'll leave the sliders together for now,
mostly because I'm feeling lazy and uninterested in messing with
perfectly good oil seals.

I'm also faced with a question, brought up by this snippet from
hawkchris:
> Adding a few shims from the F3 to your VFR valves should
> firm the fork without spending the money on a re-valve kit.
> Say 1 16mm shim on the compression valves and two more per
> valve on the rebound stacks. That's about the difference
> between stock VFR and F3 valve stacks anyway.
>

I had thought to use the VFR compression valve (the one that bolts to
the bottom of the fork) and use the CBR rebound valve (the entire
point of the exercise). Given Chris' advice, I think that swapping
the CBR cartridge in removes the need to take the valve apart, and
should firm up my front end a bit. Am I understanding this right?

My long-term plan is to wait a year or two and send the whole works
to Traxxion for the revalve and respring. If I find a set of VTR1000
lowers in the meantime, I might have those mated to my uppers in
order to allow the use of the nissin 4-pots. Or maybe not. I'll worry
about that later...like after I've got a job or something. :-)

later,
Johnj
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John

I've done the RC36-F3 fork cartridge swap and would suggest just changing
the internals first without modification. That will give you a baseline
from which to do further mods if you are not satisfied with the performance.
Change one thing at a time would be my advice (advice I don't always
follow). You may find, as I did, that the F3 compression valving with the
addition of rebound will give a noticeable improvement. I'm sure there is
the potential for additional improvement by fiddling with the valving
(changing the stack, installing Gold Valves, or whatever), but you may not
really feel you need it after this change. And hey, once you've gotten over
the initial trepidation of poking into the fork internals you probably won't
be so hesitant to pull 'em apart again.

Paul

>
> I had thought to use the VFR compression valve (the one that bolts to
> the bottom of the fork) and use the CBR rebound valve (the entire
> point of the exercise). Given Chris' advice, I think that swapping
> the CBR cartridge in removes the need to take the valve apart, and
> should firm up my front end a bit. Am I understanding this right?
>

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Paul,

I put F3 internals and .95 racetech springs in my VFR last year. I found front ride height and sag to be very different from the original. Still haven't taken the time to sort it out yet, but I'd say it rides about 2cm higher (top triple to ground) than previous stock setup. I now have to use Denny Fair's bike as a model (or the stock measurements) to change the height of the tubes in the triples and set the appropriate preload. BTW it's nice to be able to change the damping--I need a change when I go to two-up riding.

How much fiddling did you do to get the right geometry with the front when you changed internals?

FWIW

Matt Roth





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