Fork Brace Revisited

[Hepcat]

Hey Guys,

I'm home for the summer and Dad's putting some serious thought into manufacturing fork braces. He's already got an AutoCAD drawing in the works.

We need your help; we need measurements from http://www.tkat.com/forkbrace/diagram.htm on the different models of XS's and the XJ. Duplicate measurements are fine and will serve as a double-check for insurance. We're looking for measurements in mm. The best way to take most of these measurements is with a caliper. You could take most of these measurements by wrapping a small flat tape measure around the shafts and giving a circumference reading. The distance between centers (#1) can be taken easily with a carpenter's square or two.

If you're unsure of your measuring abilities or don't have the right tools, have the measurements taken the next time you're at your local garage.

Just put the numbers (1-8) of the measurements ahead of your measurements in mm in your posts, along with any other information you feel is pertinent.

If anyone has XS650s or XS750s, we'd take measurements for them too.

Thanks in advance, I'll keep you posted on any updates in our Fork Brace Recreation project.

[Bill__Woods]

The fork brace is the same for the XS1100 Special and the XS750 Special, so the measurements should be the same.

[gisleDK]

Isn't the measurements for the XS 1100 S (european model) the same as for the special XS11?

Think some aussie told me

[sidekick1975]

These are from a XS1100SG:

1- 184.68mm
2- 57.54mm
3- 57.69mm
4- 36.97mm
5- 18.17mm *
6- 15.36mm
7- 7.47mm
8- 53.85mm


*= My fender was actually higher than what it shows in the drawing. so this measurement is from the top of the fender down to the top of the slider.

These measurements where taken with a digital Caliper.

Sidekick
80 XS11 SG

[jimg1au]

xs1100rh/s fork brace

hi
the rh/s has the same forks as the midnight special 1981. i have a tkat special brace on my xs1100rh.it works great.should you not contact tkat and ask if you can copy his products.

[Bud Manley]

If he's building from scratch he doesn't need to. It would be like GM asking Ford for permission to build cars.
I just put my Tkat brace on the other day. Fits perfectley.
Now I just need to get a chance to test it out.

[Hepcat]

As far as copying TKat's fork brace goes...it's legal as long as nobody's patented it. At present, if TKat hasn't patented it, anyone could come in and try to patent it, not that I'm going to do that.

I replied to a call out for someone to take over the project of recreating the fork brace after TKat lost his files due to corrupted data. If it's gonna cause hard feelings, I won't make them for sale, I'll just make them for my own bikes. I'm not doing this to hurt anyone's feelings.

[Geezer]

Originally posted by Hepcat
As far as copying TKat's fork brace goes...it's legal as long as nobody's patented it. At present, if TKat hasn't patented it, anyone could come in and try to patent it, not that I'm going to do that.

I replied to a call out for someone to take over the project of recreating the fork brace after TKat lost his files due to corrupted data. If it's gonna cause hard feelings, I won't make them for sale, I'll just make them for my own bikes. I'm not doing this to hurt anyone's feelings.

You might consider a different design then it will be an option rather than more of the same.

I vote for the steel loop type brace like I have on the Mongrel.

Geezer

[D. P. Larmee]

I think that the idea to contact TKAT was not only to see if he minds somebody else manufactureing a fork brace, but more to see if he might be willing to contribute to the cause. Why reinvent the wheel if he already has all the measurements and specifics for the forkbraces. I'm sure that he went through a lot of trial and error before getting them as perfect as he did and if he is not going to make them anymore he might freely give any info that he has to somebody willing to take over the endeaver. Just a thought.

[Hepcat]

I wrote TKat and here's what I got in response.

>Not to dissuade you, but what happened was that my disc drive >on the
>mill turned the pgm disc into magnetic origami. It was about 7 >yrs of
>refinements. I've sent the disc to a lister and and he is trying to
>recover the data. Barring any joy, I do have several fall-back >discs
>of older renditions. & yes, the offending drive has now been >replaced.
>
>As time allows, we've been resurrecting a GL 1800 G'Wing for >Myra & me
>for a couple of the summer camps, I was gunna work on >collecting all
>the older pgms 2gthr in one spot & see where to go from there. >I've
>sorta gotta. I've about 30 sets of blocked out blanks that I'd >hate to
>sell to the reclaimers @ $0.12/lb.
>
>And then there's the $300 in custom ground >tools.....................as
>the old saw goes:
>
>"He who rides the tiger can not dismount."
>oh well
>
>If there's really that much call for them still, guess I should move >it
>up on the "Do" list. But in all honesty, it's gotta be close to a
>sold-out market. I personally, let alone Tele-fix, have sold >around
>1200 and shipped them to every continent in the World, save >Antarctica.
>
>How many more can be left running?
>
>
>
>
>
>Ciao,
> Tkat

I guess at this point I can wait a little while to see what Tkat does. I'll probably make fork braces for my own bike and just be prepared in the future to take on the project if Tkat gives up.

[Underdog]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have a good pic of one of these installed? Just like to see what one looks like on the bike.