Girder fork Identity

Thanks Roger, yes the two grease nipples do face forward, so these must have come from an earlier, pre-war, bike.

I don't suppose that is very unusual, considering how many were broken up and re-assembled after the war, probably somebody had a set knocking around and replaced a damaged WD set. All interesting stuff though!

At the moment I am not looking to change any parts around, I was just curious as to where they may have originated. I have had the forks re-bushed at great expense and, If I start swapping stuff, I will have a miss-matched set, which is not one thing nor the other.

I may decide to swap for a correct WD set in future, but I am happy with the look of the earlier forks on the bike for now.

Thanks very much for the information though.

Previously wrote:

I have a few extracts from the factory records relating to some research into the early India Office contracts and strangely enough, the front forks numbered 12607 are on the same page.

Assuming that I'm reading the handwriting correctly, the forks were originally fitted to a civilian 16H with frame number 53592 despatched to Burrows of Peterborough on 25/7/1934. The specification included Dyno, Gate Change and Panel Tank, hence no need to mount the speedo on the forks.

Have they stayed in the same area ?

Now that is interesting!

The bike itself came from the Liverpool area when I bought it, but it has a WD number on both the engine and frame lug, indicating a 1944/45 build date. (Information from Rob van den Brink). I have very little in the way of provenance with the bike, but I think it's fairly common knowledge that these bikes were "civilianised" and sold on to the public after the war by various dealers and entrepreneurs. Lots of parts, from different bikes, were joined together to make a saleable machine. It wouldn't surprise me if this happened to my bike, although it may even be a "field repair". I only suggest this as the frame and engine number on my bike match, which is incredibly rare, and also suggests the bike wasn't broken up after the war, so was maybe adapted before or after it'sdecommission.

The bike now resides with me in Bedfordshire, so the forks have come back to the South East Area, but purely by chance.

Great information thanks Richard.