1970 Velocette Thruxton recommissioning

This week saw me back into the shop after a small hiatus. The thought of finishing up the fork leg both inspired me but also put me on reservation.  It's been a few years since tackling a Velo front end. There are some peculiar points to keep in mind. 

The last job was re-soldering  the fork leg. Next was to repaint. My approach may not be what you would consider to be usual. Most people would either take the parts to a paint shop or pull out the aerosol cans and give it a whack.  The cost and time for a paint shop is out of the picture for me and with it still being below the 50's in Fahrenheit, aerosols are also out of the picture. I've done the oil tank and forks on the scrambler with brush with good results, so it should be ok here too. The idea is to keep within an older approach to repairs; easy, simple methods that are reproduceable. Everyone has a brush.

The first set was to get the primer coat on. I did two coats with light sanding in between each. The sanding is a regular theme in brush painting parts.

The final color was done in four thin coats, each coat is wet sanded to remove dust and level out the overall finish. I'm not looking for perfect, just a respectable finish that blends in with the original finish.

A few pictures of the final finish after wet sanding, buffing and waxing. The picture below is a final comparison of the original Thruxton leg on the lower right and the repaired and painted leg on the upper left.

Once the leg was painted and had a few more days to 'cure', the assembly began by removing the fork tube from the triple clamp, stripping off the spring and spring holder. I also needed to  remove both upper and lower bushings so as to replace the fork seal.  Fork seals are the same as BSA C15 seals for note.  I could slide the fork seal and upper bushing down from the top of the fork tube making it easier to use the home made driver. It's possible that some fork tubes will not allow you to do this, in which you would need to in stall the spring holder, spring, fork seal and then the upper bush plus use a two piece driver tool to install your upper bush into the leg followed by the seal. It's a good idea to draw out and give your self a good looking at before you install. Another item to install is the damper assembly into the bottom of the fork leg. It could be done later, but as you can see in the picture; it's the easiest way to make sure of it being centered. 

Once the fork assembly is ready, it's time to begin the fitting into the triple clamp setup. The spacer/spring holder might be a very tight fit into the lower triple clamp. With a wedge expanding the pinch opening I used a brake hone to clean up the surface and make it slightly wider. On the spring holder Ed G. suggested to use a file and lightly reduce it's diameter. Since it wasn't too far off I used the interference marks as an indicator as to where to file.