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  • zero cost old elastomer fork revival ?
  • ridelikethewind
    Free Member

    Hi,

    living in the dusty Alentejo, southern Portugal, on a budget that leaves precious little to spare for the bikes I'd like to have, I recently took over the care of a friend's semi-abandoned 1997 Voodoo Erzulie. Lovely bike actually, great geometry, perfect fit, but rusty cheapo components and a fork that resembles riding a piece of wet string. While I raise the cash to build my next dream bike, this one does perfectly well – except for that fork, Suntour MG90, looks like it was never a great fork, but since the elastomers have turned to bread over the years, it needs something to make it bearable.

    Any ideas on zero-cost elastomer replacements ??? Really, it's against my principles to throw away more than a couple of Euros here in the knowledge that at best it was a cheap fork in its heyday, and that's long past…
    It's a spring/elastomer fork, looks like the missing parts were originally four 30mm lengths of 19mm diameter elastomer. I dropped in a few random springs from the parts box, but can't say I was very impressed with the result. Any ideas for an improvement ?

    Looking forward to finding a similar frame I can call my own and start to build up… anyone selling a 19.5 inch voodoo (cheap) ?

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    if your very carefull you can warm them up in the microwave to revive the elastometer.

    Macgyver
    Full Member

    Well replacing them with springs is unlikely to give a good result as there's no damping for them. If I remember rightly, elastomers have their own damping characteristics.

    epicyclo
    Full Member

    I used the variable rate valve springs from a motorbike for a similar project. Very nice, but no damping.

    ridelikethewind
    Free Member

    Thanks guys ! That point about the elastomers having damping characteristcs makes sense. Now I understand the whole thing…

    I_Ache
    Free Member

    Why not splash out a few quid on some cheap more modern forks?

    bassspine
    Free Member

    how about filling the fork legs with builder's expanding foam? It'll stop them working and you'll have cheapaschips rigid forks.

    mudplugga
    Free Member

    Hi ridelikethewind off topic I know,Im off to my brother in laws place in Burgau at the end of the month. could you suggest any good riding, I've done the big lake circuit anything else?

Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

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