At long last I've just been asked to restore a set of fork links for someone, so I thought I'd take photos along the way to show how it's done as it's hard to explain without pictures.
Firstly get some 9/16" round bar, the best material spec would be EN8 or something similar, the original links were quite soft, so there's no real need to go too mad on the materials.
Put the round bar in the lathe set at about 20rpm and put a pointed tool heavily into the round bar and quite quickly move the tool along the bar to make the scroll for the grease to distribute itself along the spigot.



When this is done you can grind off the original spigots after measuring their overall length including the thickness of the link itself, you can use this opportunity to remove any wear marks in the faces of the links, the holes in the links can then be enlarged to 1/2" and heavily countersunk to provide a good area for the braze to pool in. The round bar can then be machined to length, drilled and threaded the ends should be reduced to 1/2" to fit in the enlarged holes in the links. Finally, place a piece of tubing over the ends of each of the spigots on the pair of links this ensures that the spigots are exactly in line with its opposite link. The brazed side was then sanded flat






On the friction damper link I countersunk it, brazed it on, then machined out the centre to get the braze flat again as it couldn't be ground as it was in a recess.

email (option): davmax@ntlworld.com

Nice work Dave

:-)

Jo'b

email (option): Jonnyob1@googlemail.com

Not at all a difficult task with a bit of experience, makes me wonder how many of theses links have been tossed out over the years due to a bit of wear. I have an old rusty set that I may give a workover as a spare set.
Mine were slightly bent when I got the bike but some minor tweaking and they came into true, good to know not too difficult to resurrect.

Not at all a difficult task with a bit of experience, makes me wonder how many of theses links have been tossed out over the years due to a bit of wear. I have an old rusty set that I may give a workover as a spare set.
Mine were slightly bent when I got the bike but some minor tweaking and they came into true, good to know not too difficult to resurrect.

Well done, indeed.
Would it be an idea to take 2 longer pieces of spigot, weld the links on both sides and then cut them in two ? To make sure that they are perfectly in line ?

True, it is one way of doing it, but you'd need to source a long series drill to drill into one side only as there is a thread on one side, so it can only be drilled from one side and also you need to braze one in on the damper side to be able to machine in the recess where you've just brazed it in the centre of the damper, you'd have to use this one as a register for all the others. It's just as easy to put them in a snug fitting piece of tube.

email (option): davmax@ntlworld.com

Well my links are back and to all intents and purpose as good as new. I was even lucky enough to find a 9/16th reamer in the box of old tools that we all have and don't know where they came from, so with a set of bushes from Dragonfly I've got it all back to standard and looking good for plenty of more miles at not a great cost.
As usual the service from Dave at MESS was 1st class. I posted them off Monday morning- they were back on my doorstep Friday afternoon.

We could use a Dave Plumb over here in Holland.

Don't start Michael...You've already got most of the bikes and half the spares over there.. ...Now you want the staff... ...Davje van Plumbelingen?...It doesn't sound right to me...Ian

Do they do any nice cakes in cloggieland? I could be tempted

email (option): davmax@ntlworld.com

Dave Plumb

Do they do any nice cakes in cloggieland? I could be tempted

email (option): viaconsu [at] planet'dot'nl

...............please send supplies of nice cakes to............., I may be tempted to come over, but I'd really like to try the cake first to see if its worth moving over there!!!

email (option): davmax@ntlworld.com

They have space cake over here......

And Ian, It's Leon who has al the bikes and the spares ! Not me.

Brilliant, Dave!

Very nicely demonstrated.

Jeff

email (option): jjbandoo@aol.com