Leading Link Mainenance

Hello

Not a ural.

REgards

Barry

Thanks, Berry, you helped me get a tiny step closer to the sorce of the fork. May be someone else can identify it. I will make a better photo if needed. In your user profile I saw your beautiful rig. Here is the one I am riding now.

It seems that I need to learn to attach pictures. Here it is.

Hello

EZS or EML probably an EZS.

REgards

Barry

I will be trying blind but it looks to me like EML (or perhaps Sauer => When equipped with ball or roller bearings in the pivot).
Maintenance: A drop of oil in the pivot if its a bearing and if it is not worn or stuck.

Anti seize in the shock's bolts.
(I recomend Chestertom 785 => tremendously good stuff => very viscous Zink paste)
Important! No oil on the shock's rubbers!
If the rubbers (Bimetal: tube rubber tube, vulcanized)are settled, softened (by thinner or oil) or torn off => change them, they will not hold the shock in its position and the front wheel can start to jump or wobble.

For your own benefit. Check that the bolt's straight shank passes through to the opposite hole. If not better get longer bolts (1.quality) or shoulder bolts and use washers. If not the holes and the thread will wear badly resulting in wobble.
Regards
Sven Peter

Thanks for your response. Where can I look up Sauer? Tomorrow I will make better photos and send them to you. Then I will do what you suggested.

Originally written by von Recum on 6/19/2008 9:45 AM

I am looking for advice
In 2006 I bought a 1984 BMW K100(naked), to which my predecessor had attached a Watsonian Monaco Classic sidecar using an EML sub-frame. As one of the modification of the bike, a leading link fork was installed. Here are my questions:
1. Who is the manufacturer of the fork (rumors are that it is an URAL)?
2. How are the fork moving joints serviced (greased).
/Users/avr/Desktop/SubFrameFrontL.JPG
/Users/avr/Desktop/LeftFrWheelMini.bmp

I'm pretty sure they are EML forks..they made their own to go with the subframes from them.

I have received so much advice that I would like to summarize it here. I believe that the manufacturer of my leading link fork has been identified with high certainty. Peter Pan was nailing it down as an EML fork if it has no ball or roller bearings at its pivot points. Sure enough, it does not. When I contacted the successors of EML (W-Tec), they did not recognize it as an EML product. When I contacted Neff-Design, Lowell Neff kindly responded that my fork is most likely an EML design because of the typical characteristic shape of the swingarm and the matching hoop on the fork downtubes. He confirmed that this design has no lubrication points, a disadvantage of the early EML design. Now I know, that I do not need to worry about lubrication tasks because there are none. Now I worry when the pivoting points might have to be replaced. Do you know what I mean? When I ride my rig, I am constantly listening for rattles, squeaks, scraping, hisses, knocking or other pathological noises and what I might have to do to fix them?I added the picture of the fork again so that you may see what I was talking about. I thank everybody for their contribution to this diagnosis.

Andreas,
I didn't nail much, I just remembered what I saw years back home on most biker/pusher meeting in Germany. The centered pivot with the heavy reinforecement is typical for both brands.

Check for axial and radial movement that should be taken up.

Are you sure you have no bearings in the pivot?
Needle bearings are that small that you can mistake them as bushings. And they don't like neither water nor salt. So if you have rusty needles they probably too will have eaten up small nests in the bolts. Then better replace needle bearings and bolts.Any machine shop will be able to turn them out of 4140 or better steel.

If the bolts are mounted in bushings and you have play then better change too, but check too if the recieving ear holes aren't worn.
Oil is allways good on the pivots and squeaking always a bad sign that something is wearing, and if they are just mounted in bushings, then you easily can prepare an alemaite for frequent greasing.

I forgot: shocks sometimes squeek of their own, because the spring bends and rubbs against the tube (=> at industrial supply you may get tefonized tape (brown) or the spring nest is worn(=> back/fill up with epoxi (Poxipol) or Locktite). just check

"Enjoy your tipped over toaster" (that what we called them when BMW brought them out => But I got convinced when Hänschen from Braunschweig gave me a lift in his Porsche chaser)
Regards
Sven Peter

Thanks Peter Pan: I will file your suggestions for the moment when I start hearing squeaking at the front end. At the moment, everything is nice and quiet. But now I have a personal question to you: What does the picture on your profile depict. My eyes are getting so bad that I only see butterfly pupa.Andreas

Andreas,
Its not much bigger in deed:
That are two rice grains with a painting of a house with a couple and the other one saying
"lo mas importante no se puede ver!"
=>"the most important you cannot see!"
It was my wedding present to my wife 18 years ago.

José Sanchez a costarrican painter did them on the front steps of an ancient building in San José with just a common pincel/brush and without any other help, not even glasses or magnifier.

I keep to it and to my better half too, although we had quite a few bruises and tough times.

When we met my suitcase was the rest of my Norton Commander's sidebags, saying: "Don't take life so seriously, its only temporary!"
So here we go...In these days trying to ease our Irish setter the pass over to the other side.

Enjoy every moment, this life is just lent time, (at least for many of us.)

Sven Peter

Thanks for that Von, given I have a K100 with LL forks I got something from the fork information and I have been wanting to ask Peter for ages what the photograph represented. Regards Carey