My Crash

[Curt Henry]

Friday afternoon I did a 40 - 50 mph high side, thanks to Aerostich, a good helmet, boots, and gloves I walked away with only a little road rash and a very sore shoulder, elbow and knee. The boots and gloves have holes worn through and the suit is in shreds. I am okay, a little sore, but no damage done.

Cause of the crash, I was braking on a straight road from 55-60 to allow a deputy sheriff to make a left turn. The front tire hit a tar snake and the wheel locked and when I got off the tar snake with a locked front tire the bike turned to the left and high sided on the right.

The 92 R100GS, the right crash bar is worn very thin along with the valve cover. I had 6 bottles of beer in the right Aerostich tank pannier, all bottles survived the crash with a large hole worn through the bag. Most of the damage is cosmetic and add give the bike a more of an adventure look.

The problem that must be addressed is that I believe the fork tubes twisted in the triple clamps. When the front wheel is in line with the rear the bars are crooked, the right side is about an inch turned to the left. What is the procedure for aligning the tubes?
At Ken's I played with Duane's home made tool, a section of lower fork with an dial indicator, that he used to align forks. I would like to make one for myself, anyone have a damaged lower leg from a R100GS.

[richard t]

glad you're ok!

[Bamboo812]

The quick and dirty method, shown to me by the BMW dealership in Tucson after my first R75/5 was crashed, in order to straighten forks after a get off is to use the handlebars to whack the front edge of the wheel against a solid object, like the side of a building, rock or tree. You can then drop the gaiters and use a 9"x 8" plate of glass to check the fork tubes are in the same plane. If you have one, the front wheel clamp on a lift can be used to similar effect. No need to loosen anything to do this, the fork tubes are surprisingly easy to adjust with this method. Glad you are relatively OK!

[dwerbil]

Holy cow, Curt. Glad it wasn't any worse than it was.
Sounds like beer therapy time for sure. Good luck with the bike fix.

[Duane Ausherman]

I prescribe a hot springs resort for two days for you. Clothing optional is ok too.

Don't do any smashing it around until you know what you have. Since you need the forks to be within .002" do you really think that you can get there with bashing it around? Assume nothing and measure everything.

I would first eye sight the wheels to see that they are in line. Better is to string line them. Info on my site. You first need to see if the frame is bent. Go to http://w6rec.com/duane/bmw/frame/

Just recently I sold off several kits to make up that fork tool. http://w6rec.com/duane/bmw/forktool/

How to align the forks http://w6rec.com/duane/bmw/fork/title.html

[Major Softie]

Curt, you don't know what the problem is, misaligned triple clamp, or bent fork legs. What you really need to do first is slide the forks out of the bike and see if they are bent. If so, no amount of alignment work is going to make them right.

[melville]

Glad you're OK, Curt. I bet you're even happier than me that the beer survived!

No need to cut up a lower triple. Save those for polsihing! Here's my parallelosity gauge, works on all forks:





I tapped through the alu angle to hold the staff from my magnetic DI base. Here it is in use:





Good luck.

[ME 109]

What you really need to do first is slide the forks out of the bike and see if they are bent.

Correct Kurt. Something that seems to slip past without notice on many fork alignment threads.

At the same time, a ridiculously bent fork is not a guarantee of getting a wobble. Ime.

[Duane Ausherman]

No need to cut up a lower triple. Save those for polsihing! Here's my parallelosity gauge, works on all forks:



Great idea and it will work just fine.

[Steve in Golden]

No need to cut up a lower triple. Save those for polsihing! Here's my parallelosity gauge, works on all forks:



Great idea and it will work just fine.

Is that a stealth parallelosity gauge? One of those inventions you decided not to invent I guess.