Forcelle Italia fork question

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I've recently acquired a lovely pair of 38mm Forcelle Italias from my chum Keith. I've scoured the net but cannot find any technical reference to these particular forks. I think they were fitted to F2 Ducatis, MVs , Magnis and the like. The knurled dial on top seems to be a 5 way rebound damping adjustment and the allen key at the base of the forks seems to be a 3 way compresion damping control.
Does anybody have a manual or any knowledge of these units. Forcelle Italia were a spin off from the old Ceriani concern.

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it seems to be an advanced version of a damping rod fork

i believe the top control is compression
there's a long square rod attached to the knob
goes down through the spring
rotates a sleeve with  a variety of orifice sizes
contained inside another (fixed to the damping rod) sleeve
with teflon type seals on the outer perimeter
riding against the inside of the fork tube

top of the fork leg also has a tall teflon type sleeve
to reduce tube stiction

the lower adjustment rotates a sleeve with three different orifice sizes

i rebuilt a pair of these last year
i think disassembled and cleaned is a more appropriate description
couldn't find any seals for the top of the leg
contained withing the gold anodized collar

they seem to be OE fitment on some early bimota

i took a bunch of pics
i can post them to you if you like

i think stevieB has a set on one of his machines

cheers,
scott
 
Hi Scott, Very interesting! Any idea what the two adjacent screws do which lie along the axis of the allen bolt adjuster at the bottom?
The forks are brand new and have a really nice silky action, looking forward to getting them on my racer but I need some reduced offset 38mm yokes and some 08 calipers first .
Any pics of the internals would be most welcome
Thanks , Bob
 
Steve B was looking for some bit off these,made by that Unobtanium stuff.There rare as Rocking horse poo,Steve is racing at the first round of the local series at Wakefield this weekend,first outing for a while so he will be doing the one arming paper hanger thing I bet
 
Yes, I have a set similar to these on my RGA.  Mine are 42mm (NOT 41.7), 5 position compression and some other minor differences but broadly similar.  Rocking horse shit doesn't even come close, very hard to find any support for these, though I have not really tried too hard yet.  As far as I can tell these were the ONLY forks ever made in 42.0mm, everyone else went from 38 to either 41.0, 41.7 or 43mm, so I'm pretty rooted when it comes to parts.  I'll be interested if you unearth anything.  I tried writing to Paioli (Ceriani -> Forcelle Italia -> Paioli) who showed something similar in their "moto d'epoca" website just a few years ago, but got no response.
Regarding the two screws, one is for the detent mechanism, but the other is a stepped screw which retains the adjuster.  On mine the screws were slightly different lengths and I quite uncharacteristically got them mixed up and one adjuster fell half way out a couple of km up the road dumping all the fork oil out of the 20mm hole.  Fortunately I noticed the huge plume of smoke in the mirror before I turned a corner, thought I'd lunched the motor!  So be careful with those adjusters. :-)

I think Scott summed it up quite nicely in an earlier thread I had on mine, they represent the pinnacle of damper rod forks, but are severely outclassed by cartridges or even an emulator setup.  I'd like to convert mine to cartridges at some stage.

Racing tomorrow, SFC prepped and ready to go.

Cheers
Steve B
 
They look to be the same as the forks fitted to the Ducati F1Bs from around '86. I have a set on my F1 and they work ok.The damping adjustments don't really amount to much though.The others have explained your questions about the screws etc. and oil weight makes most difference. 200 -220cc seems to ring a bell on the quantity.
 
i think they'd be perfect for a cartridge upgrade having the teflon sleeves already fitted to the lowers
as rare as they are i'd be tempted to yank the tubes and guts out for posterity fitting new tubes for the conversion

been meaning to get a set of the race-tech cartridges and making up whatever adapters are needed for a conversion
problem is every time i get far enough ahead to get a pair i spend the funds on something else  :o
 
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