Fork measurements: ~300 mm to the bottom of the dust seal/wiper ~885 mm to the top of the cap I am running my forks with nearly 1 inch of fork exposed above the upper triple. Probably about 3/4 of an inch, I would guess. I would drop it more (for quicker steering), but I already don't have enough ground clearance.
Thanks I not really worried about the limited travel but rather the feel/handling of the bike (1) - lost ground clearance and (2)- suspect that the handling/geometry with the lower front end is more geared to hard pack or graded road surfaces and may suffer in soft sand and mud environments. Could be all in my head but the bike seems to oversteer (front wheel tucking) in mud/sand and the only way to compensate for that is to drop the forks as much as possible in the triples and also run significant rear sag..105mm. I thought that the 610 with longer forks might provide improved geometry thus being more conducive to sand and mud conditions. It may be that I'm just trying to make a 300 lb bike handle like a 250 lb bike in the mud and sand... Have you ever spent any time on a 630 to compare the handling vs your 610?
I have not spent any time on a 630. I have the front end of my bike dropped almost as much as the fork length difference, and I don't have handling problems. The 610/630 has a LOT of rake, so dropping the front end can only help the bike turn better. Even dropping the front several inches won't get the trail even near to the amount of trail that a "regular dirt bike" has. Try raising and lowering the rear end via sag changes and see if either one helps the handling.
Hi all. I have some info to add to this thread. I've had a 630 for a bit, and fairly quickly I swapped the forks for TE510 ones I acquired on ebay as I wanted full-length travel & compression adjusters. I was pleased with the travel but they were a bit soft, so the wheels churned in my head. The handling was definitely improved, IMO. I'm more accustomed to real dirtbikes, though. I took the 45mm Marzocchi Shivers from the 2005 TE510 apart, and put the pieces side-by-side with the TE630's forks. The 630s are shorter, but that appears to be caused only by the shorter damper unit & spring mount point. The springs are exactly the same length, but are obviously a different rate. I calculated the rates and came up with roughly .47kg/mm for the 510 springs & .50kk/mm for the 630s. The outer tubes are also identical except for color. The compression shim stacks were notably different. I didn't disassemble them, but it looked like the 630's non-adjustable assembly had at least 2 or even 4 more more face shims than the 510s did. My reassembly was of the 630 outer tubes with the damper assembly from the 510 and the springs from the 630. I now have full travel with the higher rate springs. (I only used the 630s outers because I like the black better than the gold on that bike.) I'm going to run the 510s shims as-is for now, but I may end up adding some face shims if the travel seems uncontrolled. I hope this adds to the knowledge base for these forks.
I run a set of Zoke 45's on the 81 430 I call Test Mule. It's my test bed for new engines and valving changes. It's a high quality fork, but was usually sent out with terrible valving.
Damn, i could have spent less 100 euros on new springs for my swm rs650 300mm forks . Have to say that with new springs, new shimm stack and 300mm forks the rs650 is damn nice offroad.
Changed the fork fluid on my Marzocchi 45mm Shivers for the first time today...found the following vid helpful: View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP_z0exggUk&t=55s Went with 80mm headspace. (07 wr250) Feels good to reset the clock on my Forks.
