Marzzochi forks

Hi all after looking at drawing there doesn’t seem to be a tube inside the headstock which goes between top bottom bearing that would explain why it’s not in my parts box ,on the parts brake down the parts are numbered but no discription/index is it missing or was there not one
Cheers
Woody 👍
 
Woody said:
Hi all after looking at drawing there doesn’t seem to be a tube inside the headstock which goes between top bottom bearing that would explain why it’s not in my parts box ,on the parts brake down the parts are numbered but no discription/index is it missing or was there not one
Cheers
Woody 👍
Click to expand...
There wasn't one and what purpose would it have?
A spacer? The bearings are seated, with a thin washer, in the headstock.
They cannot move.
Paul
 
Paul Marx said:
There wasn't one and what purpose would it have?
A spacer? The bearings are seated, with a thin washer, in the headstock.
They cannot move.
Paul
Click to expand...
Hi,

use this Picture to understand,
how it works..
 

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Paul Marx said:
There wasn't one and what purpose would it have?
A spacer? The bearings are seated, with a thin washer, in the headstock.
They cannot move.
Paul
Click to expand...

Pretty sure some people have tried fitting one, without success, or to an advantage. I’m not a mechanic or engineer, but maybe if it was supporting a sidecar type leading link front end …. FIIK.

I never quite understood the reasoning, maybe some other mfr did it and ‘if it was good for them…..’ or, the wheel bearing spacer tubes were a leader to the bright idea.

But I bet there was a lot of sleep lost at night trying to nut it out.

Piet says “Don’t overthink it”
 
Saw it done on a Space Frame race bike once; it was not good. They were having handling issues till they discovered massive play. The spacer was maybe 3mm too long, and trimming it at a race circuit was not happening, so they just removed it. You need to find the exact preload required on the bearings, just like for wheel bearings. It's a very tricky bit of work trimming that spacer to suit. I use 2 tapered roller bearings and no spacer on my 3c, and with lots of adjusting, that ends up working fine.
 
No bike that I've ever heard of uses a spacer between the bearings in a steering stem!! There's no similarity between the stresses on a lower steering head bearing and the axle of a front wheel or swingarm.
 
I don't know if that spacer came in the Space Frame kit the Old Factory blokes sold or the owner added it when building it; those kits cost huge amount of money. What I saw was the rider complaining about handling issues. He pulled a few wheel stands in the car park, and then, while fiddling about in the pits, they suddenly notice massive frontend clonking while pumping the forks. The slop was nuts, 15mm of back and forth. How it was missed early, I don't know. That's when they decided to delete the spacer between the bearings. I had never seen one before either.
 
The replacement bearings for them are std shop kit - they look no different from any pair of bearings you'd fit to virtually any bike. How you incorporate some bizarre 'spacer' tube - or why - is utterly beyond me. Does it space the inner race or the outer race??? How the fuk do you adjust them?! Maybe I'm must be stupid.
 
piranha-bro2 said:
The replacement bearings for them are std shop kit - they look no different from any pair of bearings you'd fit to virtually any bike. How you incorporate some bizarre 'spacer' tube - or why - is utterly beyond me. Does it space the inner race or the outer race??? How the fuk do you adjust them?!
Click to expand...

Fucked if I know…. the poms are to blame for that example. Having said that, I reckon I’ve seen it before elsewhere…. BMW maybe?

Someone who has been a Pommy bike mechanic will come along to explain.
 
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