Maxton Cartridges for 38mm Ceriani Forks

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Vince

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We were having a chat tonight at the NSW Club night and it got to the subject in the heading. Years ago I rejected that idea as you needed to send your forks to them to do this. It now seems they have the option of buying a kit and fitting it locally and a few here in Sydney have done this on Mazzochi forks both M1Rs and 38mm. So I emailed Maxton and asked what's needed and they have a detailed drawing with dimensions they need you to supply to get this kit. I don't want to pull my forked down to get these dimensions and have the bike not going for a couple of months required. Has anyone here done these measurements in the past for a set of Ceriarni 38mm forks and be willing to share them? Their system has compression in one fork and rebound in the other with easy to get at external adjusters, just what my aging back needs.
 

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I just had a better look at their drawing, it looks to me like you need major access to the bottom of the cast alloy fork section where the oil drain bolt goes in. Approx 22mm is needed, is there a removable bottom plug there that the drain plug screws into on Ceriarni forks, I seem to remember someone wanting to remove that plug once years ago.
 
Good news they will ship them over these days. When I was building the 917 racebike they only did the full conversion in-house so I bought a set of cheap 38mm forks on ebay.uk and got them shipped direct to Maxton. Cost me au$50 all-in to their door versus hundreds for a donor set of Cerianis plus yet more hundreds in freight to get them to Maxton. It worked out well in that case since I got them to do the full refurb including rechrome the stanchions, provide new bushes and seals and everything. Sub-$50 forks ended up costing a couple of grand but worked extremely well.
I can probably provide some of those dimensions but most of my bikes and parts are Marzocchis. The only set of Ceriani forks I have are from a 750 so at minimum the length dimension will be incorrect, though I suspect most of the other ones would be the same. See if someone else can chip in first.

Re your second question, I read that as being clearance on the floor of the fork slider for the cartridge to sit, not that they'd need a thru hole of 22mm. The detail view at bottom left shows a normal bolt hole as per what we have in both Ceriani and Marzocchi, suggesting that they want you to confirm there is clearance for dia22 to sit on the floor of the fork slider, and they're asking what size bottom bolt is used so they can have that thread in the bottom of their cartridge unit to receive the standard bottom bolt. That bolt is M12 in Marzo's but smaller (M10 or 8?) in Ceris.
 
I was hoping you would reply Steve as before last night you were the only Maxton fork user I knew in Oz. Does yours do compression on one leg and rebound the other, how did they perform, not so many potholes at Philip Island or Eastern Creek, did you find a marked difference with clicker settings, I want a compliant ride. Apparently, there are at least 2 other blokes and maybe 4 or 5 bikes now fitted with them locally I was surprised to hear they do kits as well, these bikes haven't don't many ks yet. I also find it funny for 2 blokes to look at a drawing and come to 2 different ideas as to what they want from it. And I have perused a few drawings in my time. The fully extended length and collapsed lengths of the complete fork I should be ok with. Top nut dia and thread type not so much as I think Maz and Cer are different. I am thinking stripping out the spring and emulator and posting them out to Maxton might be smart in the long run as I will probably need a local Fitter to install them anyway. Bit of a coin toss, but having the info might help others do this. So the info required is.
Fully extended fork length
Fully collapsed fork length
Bottom bolt dia and pitch
Fork top thread and pitch
Fork top O ring section/ thickness
All dimensions of top nut
Internal dia of stanchion
Stanchion OD
Is there a bott guide bush and if so dia
Chrome tube length
External length
Required dia internally for base valve.
All are explained in the above drawing. If this can be determined it would make it easy to acquire a set of these cartridges worldwide.
 
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Steve, aren't the forks on your racer more modern ones that have teflon anti stiction bushings, rather than Cerianis that do not? I can't see from the diagram if Maxton´s kit includes fitting bushes, and I know that their previous kitted out Cerianis didn't have them. I reckon that there is no point going for really flash damping with fine adjustment while the stiction issue is still there.
 
Hi Vince, I have 4 sets of these forks so far but all are for Marzocchi Magnesium 38mm and M1R setups and I also have rears for SFC1000.

We did measurements by stripping each fork, unfortunately that was the only way. If you ask Richard he may share other customers measurements for Cerianis but he does like owners to do their own as there are many variations out their and some odd internal machining. Furthermore some forks over the years have been modified.

I can say once I provided my M1R Spec's Richard did confirm they had on file another customers template which were a match so they will reference their database to compare and Id anything odd. My 38mm however were different to others, mainly length I believe.

Another issue we found was all tubes were not correctly sized nor perfectly round so I had them all hard chrome and their diameters corrected to fit lower legs with correct tolerances. Lower legs were all machined very accurately from factory.

I am happy to share my measurements if that is of assistance. Cheers
 
Hi Scott, that info would be helpful but not for my situation. Just too much difference between Maz and Cer and I can see Maxton's situation with many variables in fork production over time. I was doing my usual googling on this and found a 2014 tread on Adventure Rider where a BMW R90s owner went this route and they did an upper and lower Delrin bushes, plus a lower leg hone so I asked about that and they can do uppers but not lowers and in that case, it's not worth the trouble in the long run. The way it's looking it's heading towards being safer and easier to just send them my forks and not have the bike running for the couple of months that would take. I might have to wait till I have an alternative bike to ride for that time. More bloody waiting.
 
Vince said:
I was hoping you would reply Steve as before last night you were the only Maxton fork user I knew in Oz. Does yours do compression on one leg and rebound the other, how did they perform, not so many potholes at Philip Island or Eastern Creek, did you find a marked difference with clicker settings, I want a compliant ride.
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Mine are symmetrical, rebound at the top and compression accessed thru the bottom bolt. I made my own front axle (also larger diameter) and made small access holes through it so the clickers can be accessed without removing the axle.
As to how it felt I wouldn't know as it's only really been ridden by Drmsby.

Vince said:
I also find it funny for 2 blokes to look at a drawing and come to 2 different ideas as to what they want from it. And I have perused a few drawings in my time.
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True but I suspect you're more familiar with architectural style drawings rather than mechanical? The devil is in the detail. I would not be able to follow the finer points of architectural drawings.
Tippie said:
Steve, aren't the forks on your racer more modern ones that have teflon anti stiction bushings, rather than Cerianis that do not? I can't see from the diagram if Maxton´s kit includes fitting bushes, and I know that their previous kitted out Cerianis didn't have them. I reckon that there is no point going for really flash damping with fine adjustment while the stiction issue is still there.
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Yes, as mentioned, mine are not Ceriani and are bushed. I still feel the cartridges are likely a worthwhile improvement even with the original bearing arrangement (in good order). Boring out the sliders and using bushings will improve things further but is a non-trivial exercise. I can't see any point in fitting an upper bearing if there is no clearance between slider and staunchion plus a lower bearing as you will not have changed the friction area.
Vince said:
The way it's looking it's heading towards being safer and easier to just send them my forks and not have the bike running for the couple of months that would take. I might have to wait till I have an alternative bike to ride for that time. More bloody waiting.
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What you don't want Vince is to spend a bunch of money and not get the desired result. As such it may be better to send them the forks so they can check them for any mechanical issues, service them and send them back tickety-boo with no uncertainty over dimensions.

Bear in mind they are only going to use a small amount of the parts, all they really need is a set of sliders and staunchions. If your staunchions are a bit worn or stone chipped, consider just buying a new set in Europe and shipping to Maxton. That only leaves the sliders to send over there, plus a few sundry items like bottom bolts, drain plugs, seal retainer clips and ?? that's probably about it. If you did it that way all they really need is the fully extended length to match to.

You could also do it somewhat like I did and buy new staunchions, used sliders and those few small bits from somewhere in the UK or OCT etc, get shipped to Maxton, then sell your complete set of forks in AU when the new ones arrive. Will likely cost the same or less, if you can stump up the parts costs in addition to the cartridge costs ahead of time?
 
For the sake of your back, I’d say do the rear shocks first.
Only based on my experience.
Then if you have any funds left, get a local supplier to fit emulators to the front. Racetech seems to have importers everywhere, or do it yourself with perhaps Sportsvalve from NZ, not sure if they do one that’ll go straight in but worth asking (they do an easy replacement for marzo).
It’ll never be a perfect ride, whatever you do, but work on the 80-20 rule 👍
 
I considered doing radical suspension and seat upgrades on my Jota. I wasn't looking for handling improvement. I just wanted to make the bike less uncomfortable to ride.

In the end I figured it was a lot simpler and cheaper to buy a modern bike with decent suspension. So I bought a Benelli Tre-K, which is almost a later model Laverda.

At my age I'm finding that long days in the saddle are painful, mostly in the back and arse. I take my hat off to Marty who is planning to ride a Laverda around Australia. While he has the advantage of being considerably younger than I am, I suspect he's either a masochist or he's going to take lots of pain medication with him.
 
Dellortoman said:
I considered doing radical suspension and seat upgrades on my Jota. I wasn't looking for handling improvement. I just wanted to make the bike less uncomfortable to ride.

In the end I figured it was a lot simpler and cheaper to buy a modern bike with decent suspension. So I bought a Benelli Tre-K, which is almost a later model Laverda.

At my age I'm finding that long days in the saddle are painful, mostly in the back and arse. I take my hat off to Marty who is planning to ride a Laverda around Australia. While he has the advantage of being considerably younger than I am, I suspect he's either a masochist or he's going to take lots of pain medication with him.
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As Cam has said.........buy yourself a modern bike with plush suspension outta the crate! K75 vince to stay with the triple theme??
 
Where is the fun in that, plus I only have one modern bike that interests me? Multistrada Pikes Peak but without all the garish graphics, and even then it's an ugly mother. I do have another Iron in the works buts that's more MUMS the word than Ugly Mother.
 
It was a ride on a Multistrada that convinced me that trying to make my Laverda comfortable was the wrong approach.

I was looking for a reasonably priced 2nd hand Multistrada 1200 when I came across the Benelli for a fraction of the price. The other bike of a similar style I was considering was a MV Agusta Veloce 800.
 
Vince said:
Hi Scott, that info would be helpful but not for my situation. Just too much difference between Maz and Cer and I can see Maxton's situation with many variables in fork production over time. I was doing my usual googling on this and found a 2014 tread on Adventure Rider where a BMW R90s owner went this route and they did an upper and lower Delrin bushes, plus a lower leg hone so I asked about that and they can do uppers but not lowers and in that case, it's not worth the trouble in the long run. The way it's looking it's heading towards being safer and easier to just send them my forks and not have the bike running for the couple of months that would take. I might have to wait till I have an alternative bike to ride for that time. More bloody waiting.
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Vince once again I think you are way over thinking things but here you go… both Scott and Steve have both given you a lot of advise…. So I would suggest and agree that the best option would be to send them to Maxton as its not as simple as just getting s set of cartridges to plug and play…. So if you so want to send you forks complete to Maxton ( which I would suggest given your limited mechanical skills would be the best way to proceed ( however with the caveat that you tell them exactly what you want and are trying to achIeve as not sure you will ever achieve what you are looking for with a machine that was designed a long time ago.. geometry, weight distribution and such have a lot to do with things at the end of the day ) then you know full well I have spare sets here so you could come over here on weekend ( when I am not on a run so look at the calendar both ours and CIMAA and also Bears ) and you remove your forks, you fit a set of my loaner forks and then you send yours.. that way your bike is still rideable though not sure that you ride it that much anyways and you get your cartridges fitted.
Then when they come back you swap them out and I get mine back plus you give me your old gold valves as I will use them on one of my bikes as to be honest I find it very hard to compare the gold valves on the RGS to the cartridges on the CIco … both ride up on the springs run about 100 mm or travel under normal condtions so that gives like 30 something in reserve for emergencies…

so there you go let me know the day, I will clear some space get the tools ready and you can the rest.. in fact I might even split the shipping with you for the return and order a set of rears …

reckon but you need a bike with longer travel suspension to achieve what you are really tying to find so in the Laverda range all that would come to mind would be an Atlas but for one of those you would need a step ladder and a modern upgrade to the suspension anyways but then you would have a lot more travel to play with due to the design ..
 
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