Dirt cheap fork gaiters/boots

[Grimly]

I just happened across a seller of NOS Volvo 440/460/480 manual steering rack gaiters, which looked as if they'd be very close to what I wanted for the GS forks. Took a chance and I was right - the lower end fits perfectly over the slider top and the top is ~39mm, so will do fine with a tie-wrap around it and will likely be well able for the 41mm forks of the GK, etc. The boots are about 8" long and very well made - much better than the cheapy boots available elsewhere.
IMportant - make sure you get the MANUAL gaiters, as the power rack set is very different.
These cost me £2 / $3 a pair.

 

[alke46]

Cool, let's see them installed. Nice use of imagination on finding automotive parts to put on a motorcycle.

 

[Grimly]

I saw many mentions of the Rancho 4x4 shock gaiters, but they're unavailable over here and postage on them is a sick joke, so when one of the posters on the XS650 forum mentioned he'd used a pair of VW Rabbit (Golf) manual steering rack gaiters on his XS, I started looking around. I just had a feeling these would be fairly close, as the pic is good enough to see the scale of them to the tie-wraps. Unfortunately, the wide angle lens also distorts the size of the back one so I wondered if they would be different lengths in the pair, so I bought two pairs, so I would have a longer pair and a shorter pair out of the four. I needn't have bothered, as they turned out to be identical.
In fact, I was so pleased, I bought another two pairs - I reckon I'm now sorted out for gaiters, for life.

 

[mikerophone]

Very cool - thanks for the tip, I've always wanted to do a scrambler type bike out of an old GS or one of my XL250's.

 

[sixpack]

Hello, I am working on a 82 gs1100gk, the forks tubes are 41mm but the base is 65mm where the fork seals are, do you know what the diameter of the Rancho 4 x 4 are on the "big end"?

thanks R6

 

[Grimly]

Cool, let's see them installed. Nice use of imagination on finding automotive parts to put on a motorcycle.

I bought these after buying and installing another pair of supposedly good quality fit-for-purpose and made for the job specific motorcycle fork boots.
Since I'd already fitted the purpose-made boots to the forks, I just left them on. That was a mistake.
When I finally got around to refitting the rebuilt forks, I discovered shortly afterwards the rubber on the BRAND NEW gaiters was starting to crack and will shortly be splitting all over the place. Typical made-in-a-hurry cheap crap from some backstreet factory.
Oh yeah - Thanks a Bunch, Pyramid Parts.
Now I have the hassle of dismantling the front end and replacing those crappy PYRAMID PARTS boots with something decent from a blasted Volvo, of all things.
Anyway, here's a pair of the Volvo gaiters I fitted to the XJ9F a few months ago. They'll last for years; decades, even.

You will see the fork brace of the XJ isn't gaiter-friendly, but it allowed the lower end in with a bit of filing, and removal of the lowest skirt. The zip-tie is just insurance.