Hi all after having 20 sets of various brands fork seals fail in under 2 years I decided to swap the forks out with a set of showa's. Please see below how it all went.
Any chance you can copy and paste your posts here? You need to sign up as a member of that forum to see the pics and I'm on enough forums for the moment... still interested in your mod though.
In these two pics you can see the original Marzocchi set up In these two pics you can see how much larger the husky axel is compared to the showa's In these two pics you can see haw much smaller the outer stanchen tube is on the 47mm showa's campared to the 50mm marzocchi's
The forks back from the engineers. You can see how the bottoms have been milled out to fit the husky axel Here you can see the collars that I got machined up to fit the forks to the husky tripple clamps The forks fitted to the clamps once the tripple clamps were fitted back to the bike I fitted the forks and test fitted the front wheel. I found that a 6mm axel spacer was required. As I had the original spacer left over from when the disk gaurd was fitted I just had to machine it down to 6mm. With the wheel now fitted I could sort out the fornt brake mount. Only 1 X hole was required to be drilled and tapped for the original Brembo caliper to fit on the showa's. Here you can see where the Brembo emblem is cast in to the mount. Unfortunately this is where the hole is required to be. Here you can see that the emblem has been filed off smooth With the hole drilled it was time to tap it out with a M8 tap New mouning point all done.
Good effort mate! Quite a lot of work though. What bike were the forks off? Would it not have been easier to try fit up the whole front end assembly (triple clamps, wheel, and brakes)?
The forks are of an 04 crf250X, I really like the brakes on the TE, and didn't want any issues with mounting the stock front guard and dash.
Nice work Paul! My first bike was a 250X and it was by far the best suspension of any bike we've owned yet. I was considering this same mod on my KTM and then bought the Kayaba-equipped TXC. I'm bookmarking this for my husband's bike, though, because his Zokes leak if you look at them funny.
I do not get it. I am a fast A guy who rides hard and in all these years of running Zokes (Hec I had them swap the Kayaba's off my new bike) yes along with the triple clamps in order to have twin chamber zokes. I can only think off 1 time in all these years blowing a zoke fork seal. I like them and I think a Italion made bike should NOT come with Jap, whoops I mean Japenese forks!! Oh yea! But I also think Husky should not be lazy and should put 45mm forks on their 150's. At least the WR
Both 50mm zokes are no good. I have the dual chamber 50mm Marzocchi units on my 2010 TE 310, you only have to talk about dirt/riding and they cry oil everywhere. I have now had four sets of seals (Marzocchi and aftermarket) over 2200km of light trail use + a brand new set of 50mm forks. I am in the process (the dealer is actually) of measuring up the KYB 48mm forks and clamps to see if they will fit! Hopefully it wont involve the same amount of work as said above.
I have three 08 TXC's 2 450s and a 310 also a 09 WR125 never a leak. The open chambers on both of my 06 510's never leaked either. I clean and change fluid twice a season and ride that's it.
Mate your very lucky then, Myself and three mates have the open chamber zokes and three of us have nothing but issues with them leaking.
My 50's have never leaked either I think if I ever decided I just had to have different forks I would go with KYB. Since many Huskys come with them it seems like it would be a lot easier to use oem parts.
It all comes down to cost. If you price up genuine KYB forks and tripple clamps you'll be surprised at the cost its in the region of $4000 Aus. This conversion has coast me $800 Aus including the purchase of the forks.
Yeah, having spoken to a few suspension tuners they said the KYB's are OK but they prefer working on the Showa's as they yield better results.
never have any zoke issues either, for three 450s 04-06-08. always bleed the air before and even in midst of rides, and always after strapping down the bike. lately been using seal saver covers. Lots of ugly terrain and a bunch of nat series races. Looks like a good engineering effort hope it works for you, helps make you faster and more comfortable.
