Cleaning Innards of Forks

[willr65]

I'm struggling to understand what you are having a problem with Crossrodes. Do you have a picture?

From what I remember it wasn't that onerous a task.  The headlight ears and indicator arms are incorporated on the "plate" that bolts onto the fork yolks (triple -tee?) with four bolts. The turn signals are stopped from swivelling by a notch in the arms engaing a "tab" in the indicators. Hardest part was feeding the wires down the tubes of the plate!

[Crossrodes]

Sorry Will I have no pictures.  

Looking at your website I believe your bike is an '82 and will have a different setup than mine (a '79).  Mine does not have the "plate" that you refer to.  Instead there are two sleeves that look like painted, tapered tin cans with ears attached that "enclose" each fork tube between the upper and lower triple tree.  These sleeves have rubber grommets top and bottom plus there is a poorly fitting rubber grommet for the turn signal stalk that sits below the tin cans and above the lower triple tree.  Also there is a pin (about 1/4" in diameter and 2" long) which is used to keep the turn signal stalks from pivoting around the fork tube.  This pin sits in about a 1/4" hole in the lower triple tree and is positioned so that it will be inside the tin can when assembled.

The problem I am having is trying to keep all these pieces in place as I re-assemble the forks.  What I have now done is put a little silicone on some of the parts in an attempt to held them in place.  The silicone hasn't cured yet and I will be going away for about a week so I won't get to try it again until I return.   I'll post how I make out when I return.  Thanks for your interest.

Looking at the picture you posted Will, your engine parts look pristine (cylinder, head, valve cover).  how did you get them that way?  

[Justin B.]

Mike, from what you are describing I don't believe you have a "stock" setup.  What you are describing sounds exactly like the mounting arrangement on the "bigger" bikes (R100, etc).  In fact, I'm wondering if maybe somebody swapped fork assemblies?

[Crossrodes]

Justin I thought I saw a picture somewhere of these "tin can" attached fork ears and I thought that they were stock on the '79.  I may be wrong though.  The forks themselves are a type II fork (according to my Clymer manual) which is the same fork that a friend has on his later model R65 (although he has the "plate" setup for the headlight ears).

My bike also has dual front disk brakes.  I know that dual disks were available as an option but I thought it was only available in later model years.  So you may be right about the forks having been swapped out at some point.  But then again this bike was originally built for the European market (Germany) and they may have had different specs than North American market bikes.  I know that I had a K1100LT a few years ago that had ABS (I think it was an '90 or '91...doesn't matter).  US bikes did not have ABS that year; as a matter of fact I don't think the K1100 was on the US market until a year later.  Back then and maybe even today bikes built for the Canadian market were built to Euro specs because of us going (partly) metric way back when....Just a little trivia.

[Justin B.]

This is from the r100 forks parts book and what it sounds to me like you are describing:

[Crossrodes]

That's it Justin.  Do you have a similar illustration for a '79 R65?

[Justin B.]

Mike, it shows the same stamped sheet metal "panel" as all the other dual shock bikes.  And, the "from" and "up to" fields are blank indicating to me that there was no year cutover and all years use the same part.

Check your top tree, if it is a piece of steel about 3/16" or so thick then you have had R100 type forks fitted, if it is a rather thick aluminum casting then it's likely somebody just modified bits and retrofitted the R100 parts to the R65 forks.  It would be interesting to see how your gauges mount or if it has been replaced with an R100 cluster.

[Crossrodes]

Justin my upper tree is an aluminum casting.  The instrument cluster is enclosed by the 2 piece black abs clam shell arrangement.  After I return in a week or so I'll see if I can get some time to figure out how to post digital pics from my  camera.

[Justin B.]

OK, it sounds like somebody either sawed off the bottom half of your "plate" or installed the instrument bracket meant for the police "RT" versions.  After this they then adapted the headlight ears and turn signal stalks from one of the "bigger" bikes.  Sounds like an interesting combination.

Posting a pic is very easy just make sure it is less than 256 kbytes in size then click on the "Browse" button and browse to and click on the file and it will be uploaded to this server and attached to the post.  Attached is the front of my '81 R100RT that I converted back to an R100T by installing the same parts you mention onto the RT forks:

[Ed Miller]

Justin my upper tree is an aluminum casting.  The instrument cluster is enclosed by the 2 piece black abs clam shell arrangement.  After I return in a week or so I'll see if I can get some time to figure out how to post digital pics from my  camera.

Now we really want a picture.  I was trying to imagine why somebody would adapt in an R100 front assembly when the R65 is superior, but now it sounds like yours also has an after market top plate, like Toaster Tan's or that other company that I can't remember because R65s don't need the part.  

You mentioned that is is cast.  If I remember right, Toaster Tan's is machined, so it must be something else.