Anybody tried swapping front suspension for other matching tubes or complete forks ? We've got quite unusual sizing tubes in our bikes - 46 mm diameter. Most bikes with good suspension use 47 or 48. However, ther are some tubes that might be targeted - eg. YZ/YZF or XR. any experiences so far anyone ?
Good question. Mine have given up the seals (or need to be cleaned badly) and the bike is handling awful now. A fork swap would be interesting.
I thought I'd heard rumblings of considering a swap with a TE610 or TE630, but not seen it happen. I would imagine a used pair of those are a bit uncommon to come across reasonably priced. I'd also guess mounting positions for brakes and axle are likely different. Might have to be some fabrication there. And doing a bit of Googling they seem to have more travel, but are also listed as 45mm...so dunno. You didn't say what you think the problem is with the existing forks, but my guess is a more feasible alternative is do ask a suspension shop to do some reworking of the existing forks. Might be more bang for the buck with this route--to a certain point of success.
I checked with Race Tech and many others. To rework the forks you are looking at a minimum of $1200-$1500 dollars. The cartridges we have are real oddballs. They are a sealed OEM cartridge. Everyone I spoke to said they hadn't seen anything quite like them. The will need extensive work.
The only one I heard of doing work on the forks is Konflict Motorsports. He offers the "Shiver Fork Conversion" which adds a modern style cartridge along with adjustable compression and rebound adjusters for around 1500.00
That is the only one that was sure of his quote when I called around. Seemed genuine in his ability to get the forks up to speed.
Word is that the rear shock is a damn odd-ball design also. Lets see if they can still rework both ends for under $1k.
Maybe this is usable to our forks, i dont know how it works, i'm noob http://www.suspensionhfs.com/en/content/en/hfs-system
It depends on the applications available. As noted above we have a 45mm Fork. Those cartridges would have to be available in 45mm sizing (or whatever the ID is). They do list the BMW 650s in their description of applications but I am not familiar with what size those forks are.
It's not really a question of the existing tube diameters. Finding or making triple clamps to mount whatever fork you want, then internally shorten those forks if need be. Use the donor fork's bike model front wheel. Brake as well if needed. Just takes someone motivated to do a swap and FWIW we used to put KX forks on KDXs. You could get a set of KX forks used (KYB) with a front wheel and triple clamps (the triples are usable on the KDX with the KDX stem pressed in) and complete front break all shipped for about $200. You could then turn around and sell the KDX pieces for around the same.
They are not sealed, you can get into them its easy, I just did it http://www.cafehusky.com/threads/front-folks-to-stiff-stripped-down-and-discovered.81426/ but you cant buy the piston and parts, shims etc on there own.
Look at the F800GS and G650X threads on fork changes at Advrider, you will find the answers there, then there is the 650GS YZ Fork swap thread with more info
