Forks that go boing in the night

I finally got the fork links back from the plater and I'm more than happy with the result and it's official; nickel kicks chrome's arse any day of the week. If I ever get a classic car I'm redoing all the chrome in nickel. The picture doesn't do it justice but it really is lovely. The slight scratches are intentional, the links were brushed rather than polished before the plating so they didn't stand out, I think it's worked really well. If I end up decided they need to be a bit more abused I'll take an abrasive pad to them to knock back the shine of the nickel a bit.

I've been quite busy but on Wednesday I had a couple of hours so decided to put the forks back together. It's easy to see why forks like this don't get used any more, this is quite a lot of parts for a fork that isn't particularly good.

Among those bits are the new friction washers, they're actually for a Motoconfort but they are the right size

I got them mostly back together then tried to put the steering damper in and realised it wouldn't fit past the mudguard and the lower pivot axle held it in place so some of it had to come apart and be re-assembled once the damper was in. The headset and pivots need properly adjusting but this will be a lot easier when the bike is sat on a pair of tyres that hold air and I've got a functioning front brake. The brake isn't working as I've taken the shoes out to be relined, I'll do the same with the rear next time I take the wheel out.

Now the bike is now sat back on it's wheels ready to be moved out of my brother's garage as he needs the space for his project car. Once the bike is in it's new home I'll be trying to get it running (now I can plumb the fuel 'system' in) and then addressing the small welding jobs (foot peg and rear mudguard) as the new home is a fully functioning bicycle frame building workshop so I'll have all my tools to hand including TIG, oxy-acetylene, pillar drill, lathe, mill as well as every hand tool I could ever need