The John Emmanuel steering head makes it even better but I did not want to seem to be subjecting Bowsh to a hard sell.
FF: Forks Fork Travel
- Thread starter Bowsh
- Start date
Well the photographs show why you found the front end too stiff. With a Comet you only need the outers. Moving over to one of the new steering heads, the newly specified springs and an AVO damper would be a revelation to you. It shows just how good the front end can be. I don't have an old set of springs available to check lengths and spring gauge but they look like original springs for a twin. It is possible that the outers settled and a previous owner thought he would stiffen it up or it might have been on a sidecar at some stage.
Can you run just the outer spring on a twin? Or would it be too soft?
Might have to have a couple of short lengths of broom stick, careful from which broom stick you take it from though !
bananaman
bananaman
I use a stack of 2ps ! = 1.1/2" each side, If I break down and need cash, I just have to take the spring boxes off !. Cheers Bill.
You be more flush than us folks west of ee'
Bowsh, if you want to run to run a single spring and are prepared to spend about £30 then you have two choices. One is to buy two new series 'D' springs from the Spares Company. The other, which will improve the handling at the expense of less travel and a stiffer movement, is to use some short strong springs which were developed by David Dunfey in the USA. To find out about these, and much more, you will have to plough through many pages on the modified steering head thread on this forum. I might have a pair of the short strong springs left over but I would need to know whether this is for a twin, a Comet or what.
The Comet springs were red, twins blue.........The red ones are a bit weak and some packing would fix this. The blue ones are way too still............I know, as I have just removed a pair from a Comet where the front end was nice and rigid............Not good. Yes you can remove the inner springs on a twin and it will soften the ride considerably, provided you aren't 140 Kg's.
Bowsh,
Those are the dimensions for the bulk of the production springs, so what you have is stock. That means that the outer springs provide 68 lbs./in each.
The inner springs provide 10 lbs./in or you can think of it as each spring supplies 78 lbs./in with the inner spring included.
That means if you wish to use stock springs you can run two Series D springs at 63 lbs./in each.
Two of your springs without inners at 68 lbs./in each.
Two of your springs with inners at 78 lbs./in each.
It is easy to see that the Factory felt that the bikes were oversprung if you see that they lowered the twins from 78 lbs./in each to 63 lbs./in in 1954. This in turn would imply that the Comet could be oversprung depending upon its use.
Greg mentions the short springs, some of which I designed at 14" tall so you could adjust your ride height. The lightest ones were red, then blue, then white for the heaviest . Norman was good enough to make some of these so owners could experiment with various spring rates. He also made a number of different spring rates and sizes.
For the best handling (not necessarily the best ride) the lower link should be level with the pavement when you are riding the bike. If I remember correctly, your link looked pretty good with you on the bike.
This information applies to bikes with stock steering stems. Both Norman and I have made modified steering stems that are less fussy about working well.
David
Those are the dimensions for the bulk of the production springs, so what you have is stock. That means that the outer springs provide 68 lbs./in each.
The inner springs provide 10 lbs./in or you can think of it as each spring supplies 78 lbs./in with the inner spring included.
That means if you wish to use stock springs you can run two Series D springs at 63 lbs./in each.
Two of your springs without inners at 68 lbs./in each.
Two of your springs with inners at 78 lbs./in each.
It is easy to see that the Factory felt that the bikes were oversprung if you see that they lowered the twins from 78 lbs./in each to 63 lbs./in in 1954. This in turn would imply that the Comet could be oversprung depending upon its use.
Greg mentions the short springs, some of which I designed at 14" tall so you could adjust your ride height. The lightest ones were red, then blue, then white for the heaviest . Norman was good enough to make some of these so owners could experiment with various spring rates. He also made a number of different spring rates and sizes.
For the best handling (not necessarily the best ride) the lower link should be level with the pavement when you are riding the bike. If I remember correctly, your link looked pretty good with you on the bike.
This information applies to bikes with stock steering stems. Both Norman and I have made modified steering stems that are less fussy about working well.
David