500 forks

Paul Marx

Hero member
Location
France
According to the 500 workshop manual, 500 fork springs are 400 mm new. Any idea what the lower wear limit would be?

More importantly, what is the length of the spacer above the spring?

Thanks
Paul
 
Hi Paul, you can find new ones on the web but my experience is not to go for the Progressive types from a German company, I thought they would be ideal for my race bike. I cut the spacers down to try and reduce the pre-load on the new springs

When I got my Monty to a suspension specialist at the end of last season he could not believe I had ridden the bike let alone raced it - way too long, much too hard, wrong in every way

If your forks are apart, it may be worth putting them on a good flat surface and check your stanchions, mine were both slightly bent, not unusual in older bikes I am told, I suppose forty years of braking and abuse will take it's toll

In the end I had new stanchions, custom springs, new synthetic bushes to reduce "stiction" and other internal mods. Cost a lot of brass but now they do what they should and work very well with a good window of adjustment

Hope this helps a little, as usual ask one question and get a million answers, sorry to tell you more than you wanted but I wasted a lot of time and money trying to get mine right and had listened to a lot of BS here and elsewhere. When I went to specialist he transformed my bikes handling and steering
 
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