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Front suspension damper rods

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Hi. At the moment I’m building the front forks of my Dommie 99 project. The fork leg damper rods have a threaded portion at the top, which I assume the fork caps screw onto when the caps are screwed into the stanchions as the caps have threaded holes on their undersides. The upper part of the damper rod also has a nut on it that screws down onto the fork spring top locating ‘spacer’. At the moment I have those nuts screwed down fully tight onto the spring’s top spacer. The bit I’m unsure about is this - when I screw the top caps onto the damper rods do I then loosen that damper rod nut and unscrew it until it locks against the underside of the fork top nut or do I leave it fully tightened down against the spring’s stop spacer?

My reason for thinking that I might need to use the nut as a lock nut against the underside of the fork cap is to prevent the damper rod from unscrewing itself from the fork cap during day to day riding - but that assumption could be wildly wrong, hence this request for info.

Thanks very much

Regards

Tony

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You are correct in assuming the nuts tightens up to lock against the Top nuts. You might want to check your front wheel spindle slides in place nicely when fully assembled but without the front wheel fitted and adjust the position of a top nut to get good alignment. This will help when refitting the front wheel in future.

Regards, Al.

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If its the same as the Commando you use the nut to lock the top fork nut to the damper rod. If after assembly and you check the fork sag and find you need to raise the bike at the front then add a spacer under the nut to add preload to the spring.

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Thanks guys. Two very useful tips there - I hadn’t thought about checking the spindle fit to make sure that the stanchions etc are properly positioned. Also a good tip to sort out any front end sag. Hopefully I won’t have any excess front end sag as I’ve got new springs in the forks.

Thanks again

Regards

Tony

 


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