The main fork tubes on the Elefant were in a terrible state. One of them had lost so much of its gold anodising that it actually looked a little like a real Elephant leg.
At first I thought I would replace the whole fork. A bit of research revealed that lots of trail bikes of the same period came with multi-adjustable versions of the 45mm USD Showa forks that would slot right into my yokes. A bit of hunting soon turned up a beautiful set with new bushes and seals (off a Suzuki RMX 250). The match isn’t perfect because the legs are a bit longer overall and the caliper mounts will need machining to take the bottom damping adjuster. I want to take my time with the machine shop stuff and don’t want to wreck the geometry, so I have put the full swap on hold and instead rebuilt my forks using the Suzuki’s tubes and new bushes and seals (one of mine was completely lunched.
Note: state of fork legs.
Old leg is on the top, of course. Barely a fleck of gold left. Bottom leg could have come of a two-year-old bike. But it it slightly longer.
You can use the fork stanchion as a slide hammer to get your old seals out. But you need one of these to drive the new ones in. Works a treat too.
Necessity is the mother of invention, is she not?
That's better!
