Pitted fork repair

If it's broken or just needs tweaked

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onepieceatatime
Posts: 323
Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2011 5:12 am
Location: Franklin County, Pennsylvania, USA

Pitted fork repair

Postby onepieceatatime » Sun Jun 03, 2012 5:45 pm

I was on the DOHC forum, and found this post from user Tourmaster. I am sharing the post here with his permission.
Volker, if you deem it worthy, perhaps you can make it a sticky?

Tourmaster wrote:Okay Gene, here goes ... our local bike shop repair guy (Hugh), who I have a lot of respect for, was very forthcoming concerning his "Pitted Fork" repair weapon of choice. Hugh has in the past used the epoxy trick, but later found that the farm and heavy duty equipment guys were repairing their pitted hydraulic cylinders with something a little more robust ... and just as easy to apply. Since using this simple product(s) over the past several years, he has had no returns from his many customers.

I took some, rather crappy, photos of this stuff at his shop this morning. It's actually a solder/braze like product that is simply melted into the offending pit area. Here's the photo of the container that holds several of the solder like wires.

Product Name: Cronabraze 92C CW1020 Acid Core
Image

And here's the solvent/flux he uses to first prepare the area.

Product Name: Cronasolv Eagle F930
Image

Hugh said that the supply company he gets this stuff from is Lawson Products ... here's the link:
http://www.lawsonproducts.com/website/m ... enDocument
NOTE: In the photo showing Hugh's example, he was actually able to get the wire in shorter lengths contained in a smaller tube, rather that a large roll as shown this this catalog shot.

Here's their catalog for the specific items including the solder/braze wire:
http://www.lawsonproducts.com/webapp/wc ... GSOLDERING

And next the solvent/flux:
http://www.lawsonproducts.com/webapp/wc ... 2CPOLYMERS

I actually had a chance to watch Hugh do the repairs to my GS1100 fork tube, which had one pitted area. Hugh's method of fork tube pit repair generally follows these simple steps:

    1) In my case I actually had removed the fork tube allowing him to lay it flat on his work bench
    2) First clean off the offending area with a general cleaning solvent to get rid of any oil and debris
    3) Using very fine emery (ie; crocus) remove any potential raised burrs, but leave the depression area of the pit as is (ie jagged)
    3) Quick flush cleaning of the area again
    4) Apply the flux product
    5) Preheat the pit area a bit and then using a simple cigarette lighter torch melt a very small amount of the Cronabraze solder/braze wire into the pitted area.
    6) Allow the area to cool and then buff the excess solder/braze material away using, again, very fine emery cloth ... buffing to a smooth finish.
    7) Reassemble and cruise for many happy years of NON-leaky forks

The cost of refurbishing and rechroming heavy duty equipment hydraulic cylinders have driven machinery companies to find simple and cost effective repairs, that will stand up to the riggers of the construction and mining industries. Since these are certainly more demanding applications than us lightweights cruising around on our 750's ... I like the approach. :wink:
Folsoml wrote: Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. :lol:


1977 CB750K
1977 CB750K
1978 CB400A
1980 CB650C
1980 CB650
1982 CB900F
1982 CM450A
1997 GL1500SE

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Volker_P
Posts: 5508
Joined: Mon Mar 06, 2006 1:53 am
Location: southern Germany

Re: Pitted fork repair

Postby Volker_P » Mon Jun 04, 2012 5:30 am

onepieceatatime wrote:Volker, if you deem it worthy, perhaps you can make it a sticky?

Thanks, this seems a very good article! No question of worth it, as fork pitting repair seems no really frequent issue, I prefered to add it to the "internal technical links" list.
Cosky's great (free) online manual: http://cosky0.tripod.com

forum links to common technical issues

If you really like this site and you would not like to see it vanish soon, have a look there: Urgent: Future of HondaCB650.com Forum

onepieceatatime
Posts: 323
Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2011 5:12 am
Location: Franklin County, Pennsylvania, USA

Re: Pitted fork repair

Postby onepieceatatime » Mon Jun 04, 2012 6:00 am

Volker_P wrote:... as fork pitting repair seems no really frequent issue, I prefered to add it to the "internal technical links" list.


That seems fair, and the internal technical links is a very handy page. Thank you for putting that together.
Folsoml wrote: Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. :lol:


1977 CB750K
1977 CB750K
1978 CB400A
1980 CB650C
1980 CB650
1982 CB900F
1982 CM450A
1997 GL1500SE


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