Are inner fork tubes supposed to be different? (GS650GL)

[buddha]

Long story short, I am in the process of rebuilding my forks for my '82 GS650GL (seals & progressive springs) and I found that the L & R inner fork tubes are slightly different.

The difference between the L/R fork tubes is very small. There is a sleeve on the inside of the bottom 3 inches or so of both inner fork tubes. One of the fork tube inner sleeves has 2 holes (on the inside, ~2" up from the bottom), the other has only 1 hole. There is also a single matching hole on the outside of the inner fork tube that lines up vertically with the inner sleeve holes (when the sleeve is rotated to align with the outer hole).

Are they supposed to be different or did someone replace one of the tubes with one from another model/year?

I've checked the schematics on AlphaSports & BikeBandit and they list only one part number for the inner fork tube (no longer available). This leads me to believe that the fork tubes should be exactly the same.

Any ideas? I want to be sure before I reassemble everything.

[DimitriT]

They should be the same. Any chance the bike had work done on it?

[buddha]

I bought from the original owner (1st owner). I didn't even consider asking that question. I was more concerned about the current condition of the bike. It is possible that he had some work done in the 26 years he owned the bike, but unfortunately, I have no idea which work was done.

[buddha]

Just got off the phone with the original owner. No fork work was ever completed. It only had 12k miles when I bought it last summer.

Soooo..... This means that either the machinist who made the part screwed up, or the guy who assembled the bike got the part mixed up in his bins. Hmm, interesting.