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Front forks sticky on 1978 GS550e

  • Thread starter Thread starter tomservo
  • Start date Start date
T

tomservo

Guest
Hey all, new here but not to motorcycling in general. Recently picked up a 1978 GS550e and have her running great but the front end has felt stiff and "bouncy" at speed. When the bike is stationary I can sit on t and try pushing down on the bars. It hardly moves but if I put some serious weight into it the forks will slide down. If I stand up over the bike (unloading the suspension some) then I can push down and they will will move down and back up as they should. As such when riding on the street around 25 mph and up the front gets bouncy as the forks aren't moving much. Of course larger bumps will get them to move. Now it has been doing this since I got the bike and I have taken apart the forks and replaced the oil and cleaned them up inside. Still no change in this behavior. Even tried lighter oil just in case but that's not it. I'm thinking maybe I have a tweaked tube and will be taking them back apart this weekend to check straightness but I wanted to see if this is a common issue or if there is something else I should be looking at?
Thoughts?
 
This is not a common issue, you have a serious problem

Pull the front wheel and fender, and the fork springs

Test the motion of each fork while it is one the bike. Both should move smoothly

Reinstall front fender and try again

Reinstall wheel loosely- loosen mounting bolts at triple clamp. Tighten bolts at axle and work up to top triple clamp

These steps should pinpoint the problem

does it seem to have the correct fork springs in it?
 
Thanks, that is along the lines as what I was thinking of doing (though you have added some extra details I didn't think of). The springs look correct and match up with what the service manual diagrams show. I'm hoping it is just something a bit wonky that loosening as you describe will track down. I'm still worried that maybe a leg is tweaked though it's to small to eyeball. I need to take the upper portion out and probably roll it on a glass table top or some other straight edge. I'll post my progress.
 
ok, so it appears that sometime in the 30 years this bike has been around it must have hit something as the inner fork tubes do have a slight bend to them as they both stick at about 3 inches form the bottom of their travel, the right one is a little worse than the left. they will continue to travel through the sticky bit but it takes noticeable effort to do so. So now I'm deciding whether to:

A: get the inner leg straightened (I seem to recall this is possible if they are not creased
B: find some used forks on ebay from the same model
c: replace the forks/front end from a more modern bike

So what forks from other GS models will bolt in directly (36mm fork)? Are there some specfic forks from other bikes that people have found good luck in swapping over too?
 
get replacements I cannot imagine them costing as much as a repair.
 
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