Ariel Owners Motorcycle Club

All is far from well with the front forks in my 1963 Arrow. With the wheel spindle snug in the
nearside suspension link it is too far out of line to enter the offside link. The links themselves
seem to be true. With the links out of the forks the spindle, damper and pivot holes all
align nicely. This leaves the forks as the culprit. The legs are further apart at the bottom
than at the top and, at the bottom further apart at the back of the fork than the front. Also
the holes for the link pivot bolts don't quite line up.

Another issue with the front fork assembly is that the front wheel is offset to the brake side by
about 1/8". The wheel itself has not been rebuilt and is as per figure 64 in the workshop
manual. The fixings for the 'A' shaped brake anchor on the brake plate nearly touch the inside
of the fork which seems awfully close.

Thoughts anyone and does anybody know who could straighten them for me?

Will, I found the same problem last year on a set of front forks I refurbished to go onto a single cylinder Arrow engine sprinter special owned by a friend that I was putting together for him, one of the fork legs was bent backwards slightly putting out of alignment the holes in the links so couldn't get the front wheel spindle through, very annoying after all the work of prepping, painting and fitting the suspension units and only finding out there was such a problem after fitting the forks to the frame and trying to fit the wheel. I elected to refurbish another set of 'straight forks' and scrap the bent ones, I was thinking this might be your best option also, then again perhaps by now you've had your bent forks straightened. (earlier this year I came across a bent steering stem on another set of forks I refurbished for a Arrow racer, again, only found out after fitting them to the frame and noticing that something about them just didn't look right, another set of straight stem forks sourced and refurbished, learning all the time the lengths you have to go to checking old parts these days to make sure they are fit for use). Jess

Thanks for the reply Jess,

I'd pretty much come to the same conclusion so there is another set of forks
awaiting attention in the workshop. As soon as they arrived I cleaned enough
crud off to get the links in and ensure that the wheel spindle fitted - which it
did.

I'm not going to give up entirely on straightening the bent set. A friend of a friend
repairs diggers and the like and has a large press. We should have enough
'shove', the problem being working out quite where to 'shove'. The way things
are it may take a while to actually do anything but I will post the results.

There is no shortage of 2/ front forks, my sone jokes that every job lot of new or used spares comes with a set of forks. In fact we went to see a shed full of assorted spares and the only remarkable thing was that the absence of 2/ stroke forks.