83 CR500, here begineth the lesson

Another beauty! Wow......

Dig the trick looking brake arm and pedal.

That is one good looking machine. I'm liking the black rims and bars without a brace. Gives it a real modern feel without losing any style.

So, quite a way to go before I have anything looking like that.
Split the crank and both the rod and pin have wear. I thought that would be caused by the excessive clearance on the side to side play on the big end bearing but talking to people the plot thickens. Still not sure about the whole set up, more used to mains set in the cases and shimmed. Had a good chat with Andy at HVA and it will become clear, will go for the NOS rod kit soon, HVA being very helpful.

Huskydogg,
What kind of handle bars and mounts are those?
Looks Awesome

Did some good shiny stuff too though. Fork plugs were very much abused but managed a reasonable rescue job. Skimmed the tops and milled some new flats at 36mm A\F which is just ok. A tidy up and good as new, well almost. A good save though.

On the subject of forks, any idea how this damage has been caused at the bottom of the damper tubes ? I can't work out how it happened.


Also, not really relevant as it is such a bitsa but should it have 40mm forks as an 83 CR500?

Are they tapered bars ?

Final shiny for the day. Put the bearings back in the hubs and forgot the spacing tubes, DOH ! Too keen. Found the old ones out and M\C'ed up some nice stainless ones to replace them.


Future shiny, dropped the cases off today at a specialist for full resto. Vapor blasting I've never seen up close, What a finish !! Better, much better than new. He will also paint them with some fancy paint. Showed me a pair or RD/RZ cases finished, top top job. Might go just clean though. Roll on next week.

yes 40mm ...started in 82... and 83 and 84...

err make that 1981 that hva started with 40mm forks... i ran 20 wt in my 40mm forks...winter and summer...i got a set of 40mm in the shed but not stripped then down....i would not expect to find this sort of damage.

Perhaps we should have a thread sticky'd, showing that fork damage, and explaining in depth the cause and how to avoid. Seems like that would be valid sticky'd FYI.........for the newb's to these bikes like myself.

I'm guessing a 'form emulator' is a bit like a DeLorean flux capacitor?

Good idea. I'm doing work tomorrow so will post on general forum with pics.

My damper rods look almost exactly like yours. I believe the primary culprit is excessive hard bottoming out. Stock weak springs and poor dampening = hard bottoming. With the inherenet flex in the design, not at all surprising. Think about the leverage in play on landing and with the forks at an angle as the uppers and lowers compress together, the force is trying to drive the components out of alignment. Other than the fork seals and oil, the only thing trying to keep the upper and lower aligned is the bottom valve which is doing the damage you see when fully compressed. Add in poorly maintained fork oil (grit in the bottom of the lower tubes) and you have a recipe for the damage. After you clean them up a little, I would rotate the damaged sides so they are facing the bike when re-installed.

That makes perfect sense to me. I didn't measure any sag or anything before I stripped it, I guess I'll just fit new fork springs as a matter of course. I had the rear shocks completely rebuilt and sprung so no point in skimping on the front end.

In fact, that kind of links up to a conversation I had with a UK twinshock racer about the modern courses getting higher and higher jumps, almost supercross style and it really taking a toll on older bikes (and making him realise how much older he was getting!).

Very interesting read. I have been very curious about that as well. Having occassionally read folks saying how much the tracks had changed. I haven't ridden regularly in almost two decades. And I'm intending to dial my bikes, and myself, and push my condition as hard as I can. With the goal to be perhaps racing before the year is up. Not sure what its going to take physically, since its been so long. But I used to ride tracks from several times a week, to a day or two every couple of weeks. I'm hopeing I can shoot for that kind of schedule again, after some time. Have some big permanent injuries to contend with, and possible arthritis due to the injuries in some places. But hey, riding is so much fun, you tend to forget about that kinda junk at times. Atleast thats how I'm hopeing it will still work.

I used to take big air jumps, that most others were afraid of. Even if I was on a smaller bike, like an 80/105cc, or a 125. But I don't know, nowadays, I think I might not have that no fear mindset. Will just have to wait and see. I know I have zero interest in all the tricks alot of folks do now. My bag of jump tricks is still gonna be pretty short, with a table top being my crazy extreme one. I'm going to be real curious to see if I can get comfortable enough again, to take real big double and triple jumps. My bikes will have more than enough power, so it will all be up to my skills and conditioning.

My ultimate goal, would be to race my 1980's big bores, in a class against new bikes on occassion. Just to see how my speed really compared, and maybe show up some guys on newer machines to, perhaps......

I do recall pretty well, that if you don't have enough speed up, a lap on many tracks can be much harder on rider and the bike. There is certainly a pace, that equals the smoothest way around, usually.

Exactly like that yes...should have read "fork" emulators.