'82 200E Big Red - Front Forks/Suspension Incident
Got a bit carried away with my Big Red Friday night. After a few hours of good riding I move myself into position to pop one final wheelie before loading up, yet this time I manage to pull up hard enough to fully extend the front shocks to the point where the inner shaft completely clears the outer tube, colliding on the way down, bending my left fork into a near right angle. At first glance I thought it was over for this front end but upon closer inspection it was clear that nothing had actually bent other than the inner spring itself. I was able to slide the left fork off of the axle, fit the shock back together, slide it back on, lube it up a bit, and pretend that nothing had happened. Obviously I'm delaying the inevitable, this front end is shot and a replacement would make my life a lot easier, now that this has happened once I'm sure it's much more likely to happen again, but I'm not quite at the point where incidents like this are enough for me to fork out the $$ for a front end swap.
Has anybody else here with the early Big Red forks had this happen to them? Gave me quite a scare.
I wonder if I could just clean up the forks a bit with some steel wool and find a new spring in a hardware store that's a close enough match.
Last edited by EPOCH6; 11-28-2016 at 02:07 PM.
1982 Honda ATC200E Big Red
1987 Chevrolet Scottsdale R10