Bren

Twanged is when it goes on with a rubber mallet, Pranged is when the sledgehammer is called into service :blush: Luckily all on fleabay is not complete crap. Been waiting for you to update your thread on the rear caliper bridge line. Fancy making 2 ????? PO´s should not be allowed to work on their bikes, they will only bugger it up. Only " WE " can do it right and not cock it up :idea3: Still waiting on pics Pete

So not to start another thread... I noticed my forks were different lengths WTF? Measured while together and came to 6mm. I hadn´t intended taking the forks completely apart but as the fork seals needed changing I decided to take them to bits and find out where the difference came from. Well you gotta dont you? Difference in rod length 6mm + beer You can see the rod length difference in this pic. 6mm. I don´t know why but the PO had obviously been in there and had the lower locking nut in a different position to the nut on the other fork. He must have noticed when he took the wheel out at some stage but chose to either ignore it or hit it into submission. Thats whats left over from the special Christmas beer...mmmmm 8% beer happy days :wub: Heres all the new bits installed on the slider. New seals & bushings :idea3: Bren

So I found the offending Bastage. The new, to me, upper fits perfectly as it should, exactly as everyone elses. Well I wouldn´t want to be different would I? :idea3: new upper Big thanks to all the replies, especially the extra effort from a certain few :wub: Bren

Good points Pete. I´ll be sure to check the lower out also. When I came across this difference I couldnt believe it. I started to worry all the difficult to find, read expensive, pieces were scrap. The thought of having to put the whole LBS system back on again wasnt very appealing either. I´ll post some photos when I find the offending piece(s) :rolleyes: Looking for another 954/929 upper, there´s very few about right now on ebay. Unless someone knows if a cbr600RR or something else fits? Bren Ps appreciate the offer for the upper but I´m gonna look for a straight cbr piece.

The SP1 upper and lower look to be in great condition. No obvious dings or bangs. I can see what you´re thinking, especially when one has already been stung, and its completely valid. If the set had a bump as a set then they would still fit together although tweaked. But this would also mean that it wouldn´t sit perfect in the headstock, which my set does. I´m not trying to convince myself that its only the cheap part thats tweaked, therefore saving a lot of swearing, and I mean a lot, but if I can tighten the locknuts etc down to torque spec etc and it still turns free and smooth then I call that straight. Thanks for the thoughts :fing02: Thats how these things are resolved. Bren again nice Öhlins, when you gonna be finished ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_plate Thick glass would be the poor man's surface plate. Aha. Well a kitchen granite worktop it will have to be. That will determine the plane of the upper but any ideas for the lower and stem? Bren

Process of elimination - check the CBR U.T. first, because the '51 piece fits. What he needs to do is double and triple check EVERYTHING, and properly. This means v blocks, dial indicators, and surface plates Bren! :rolleyes: I think the idea of process of elimination is the logical next step. I gotta check the CBR upper to see if thats borked first, the pane of glass trick and measuring the "parallelnessises" is what I´ll do here. As a few others have said, I do hope they´re wrong, that maybe the lower triple is tweaked. What is the best way to check the lower triple? Pane of glass trick again but that will only tell me if its tweaked in the North South plane. What about the stem? I assume it should be at 90 degrees to the lower, as was rightly pointed out earlier, that for our VFR, steering angle is taken care of by the frame neck, some raked choppers can also have it in the triple. I´m thinking if the stem were borked that even the SP1 upper wouldn´t fit down on it as straight as it does. I cant see it that landing a wheelie hard could twist the lower, crash different matter, and/or bend the stem. If so it wouldn´t fit as good as it does in the headstock, with the bearings locknuts etc. I will check it but I thinking no to that one. So v-blocks I know and can organise but what are these surface plates? Never heard the term, unless you mean 2 straight edges to "eye" down the length of the forks, which I did in the lower triple and they were parallel at every point I tried. One other thing I remember is the 954 upper was rather difficult to get on. Its been a week now but I´m sure it took more effort to slide/push/tap down the forks than the SP1 upper. Hmmmmmm Thanks for the GREAT advice guys :fing02: Nice Öhlins Rusty!! (insert finger licking good emoticon)

***applause*** :fing02: Above and beyond.

WOW Thanks for the responses folks :wheel: There is only the triples and forks fitted no other appendages to skew things, fender, wheel, etc. To check for straightness.... I used 2 straight edges across the forks, no upper triple, and viewed from above to see if they lined up. No problem there. I also turned the forks in the lower triple to see if they somehow managed to align themselves with the upper. Nothing. I had considered the lower bearing race wasn´t seated properly and "Triple" checked this (sorry) After much thought, the time to read this post, I have come to the conclusion that you all have unsafe front ends and must stop riding immediately!! :cool: :wheel: :ohmy: Please send all of your uppers, hehe, to me and I´ll dispose of them in a humane and ethical manner. OR, maybe, probably, I need to get a new upper triple. I will check it and report back but it looks likely. At least its a cheap part. Thanks again everyone at least I dont have to worry about something more serious. Bren

The CBR929/954 lower works as well. I had an SP-1 lower whose top nut threads gave out - replaced with a CBR lower. How do you mean "gave out" Rick? Not threaded in enough and too much force on the used threads?

I´m thinking you and Seb may be on to something. Will have to check and report back.

Amen to that statement Bren. Hows yours going Pete? What upper triple are you using?

Nor necessarily incorrect. I have a similar setup to Bren and mine was a very tight fit too (954 upper). Since everything was used but sold as "straight", I just assumed something wasn't. Also like Bren, I had another one (in my case a cbr1000rr upper) that slid on smoothly. I run a cbr1000rr lower. Again since everything I have is used, I can't say with 100% certainty what is correct but I'm now leaning towards the 954 is a tad different. Jamie, the early cbr1000rr uppers are gullwing and will work but they are "cosmetically challenged" because of the electronic steering damper mounting points. Good to hear, I was starting to think I was the only one and/or something was seriously "unstraight". So Foto what did you use in the end, the 954 or 1000rr? If the 954 Hammer or Grind? Bren

Rake and trail is a culmination of headstock angle, triple offset, and fork length, so your assumption is not necessarily correct. True, I think, fork offset could actually be the same if rake and trail are different but that would also mean the relevant holes in the uppers would be at different angles to suit the rake and trail. Therefore the upper could quite easily slide onto the forks but because of the angle would not fit over the stem (?) I´m no expert, just trying to figure this out. Thanks all for the input :fing02:

That is the de facto set-up. SP1 lower triple with the CBR929/954 upper. Check all the SP1/2 swaps, they have gone this route. I thought you´d know this, Jamie, as one of the suspension Pro´s around here? One example

Well after further research the rake and trail of both bikes is different. Honda RC51/SP1 Rake: (Caster Angle) 24.5 degrees Trail: 100.5mm (3.96 inches) Honda CBR954 Rake (Caster Angle): 23.45° Trail: 97mm (3.8 inches) Honda CBR 929 Rake: (Caster Angle) 23.8 degrees Trail: 97mm (3.8 inches) This must mean the offset is different and therefore the upper triples must be different. Hence my 2.5-3mm difference. Bren