Alpino forks

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bb20

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stoke on trent
Hi, I have recently aquired a non balancer shaft alpino, the marzocchi forks are air assisted ......anyone any idea if these were the standard fitment??
 
The 35mm Marzocchi fork on my Morini 3 1/2 has small spring loaded check valves, sitting in the fork caps. Just a ball in a hole, loaded by a spring and hold in place by a bolt with chamfered slot head, resting inside the internal hexagon of the cap. The chamfered surface of the bolt has small ridges, so air can pass when the bolt is seated. If these bolts are replaced by standard bolts w/o the rigdes, or a DPO has overtightened the original bolts, or dirt is blocking the air pasage, these forks can get quite stubborn. Might be the same system has been in use on the Alpino forks.
 
There are schraeder ? type valves as per your tyres in top of forks when depressed let out a hiss of air under pressure.. I can remember something similar on my Le Mans mk111 .
 
There handy to release any pressure build up. Had them on a few dirt bikes and on the 38mm Maz forks on my Pantah. Dont be tempted to add air, its very hard to be accurate and it doesn't take much to blow seals. There used to be kits to connect each side together and small volume hand pumps with gauges to add air and not lose it when disconnecting. Also gone the way of the dodo, didn't work so well. Pumped up a Tyre a few times with one, they were the size of a large serringe ,about 100mm , not much fun with the tyre but doable when desperate
 
I thought the Guzzi system was a self contained fork damping gadget sealed with fork oil lubing the action. Not to cleaver so I hear?
 
I've not seen them on a Laverda but the 38mm Marzocchis on my Ducati have Schrader type valves in the top. I think (from memory) the manual says to put something like 2 psi pressure in them. Can't see the point really, other than a bit of positive pressure to keep dust out. 2 psi won't do much for pneumatic spring action. Anyway, it's damn near impossible to do without a special pump and gauge so I just leave them alone. Never tried to pump them up.
 
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