MRC Forum- brought to you by www.morini-riders-club.com Member: g7AW3f

I'm looking at a set of unused fork tubes at a good price at the moment.
The seller isn't sure what actual make they are, I have Marzocchi forks needing their tubes replaced, will the fittings(fork caps and internal dampers) be the same on either make of tube and if they turn out to be Paoli would I be able to use them?

Expensive bits of scrap if they can't be identified & don't fit, perhaps?! I can't advise really, perhaps slim chance of them fitting, maybe you can get them machined/altered when you get them, but it's a ££ risk,particularly if the items in question are not located near to you. Guess I'm pointing the obvious out.

If you do a search for re-chromers on this forum you should be able to get a address such as Philpotts (I think) down in Luton? poss £130 +; but perhaps somebody more local can do it for you, must be somebody in the west coast/glasgow area? 'hard chrome', grinding etc, people that do hydraulic rams etc

I found it cheaper to buy a new pair of fork tubes, from Disco Volante, but then mine were pretty badly gone.

http://www.discovolantemoto.co.uk/fork- ... d_487.html

Thanks chaps
I didn't buy them in the end as I couldn't be sure if they were the correct ones, they sold for about £90 for the pair in the end which would have been a good price if they fitted.

The disco volante tubes are £113 each which makes them very expensive as I then have add the little costs (seals etc) on top of that, I've found the price of rechroming seems to be about the same as new forks tubes otherwise( about £160 not including postage) and while my bike wont be getting any further until I fix the forks I'm baulking at the cost so soon after the expensive Christmas period.
I'm going down to Nottingham on business next week and may try and skive off into NLM to ask them about some bits, though I wont hold my breath they'll be any cheaper than anywhere else.

If anyone has any Marzocchi forks suitable then let me know how much you'd want for them.

(BTW it's really boiling my blood the number of suppliers who list 'low prices' only to find they add VAT right at the end! )


What I'm also doing is looking around at other forks, Ducati Pantah etc. as these seem to be the same size and that wider search criteria can sometimes mean I'd be able to get a complete set of forks for less than the price of the bits, this approach has work in the past for my other bikes and a bit of patience here may pay off if I'm lucky.

I could be mis-remembering, but I'm pretty sure that price is for a pair of legs, unless they've gone up massively in price recently.

It's surprising what you can do so long as you can find Marzocchis of the same diameter. I swapped the legs from a 1979 SWM 250 Enduro with a 350 Morini when building the "Bitsa Trio". Longer, but basically the same. Even the yoke spacing was virtually identical. The result an SWM with a 2LS Strada front brake instead of a 'tobacco tin'.

Monstyr wrote: What I'm also doing is looking around at other forks, Ducati Pantah etc. as these seem to be the same size and that wider search criteria can sometimes mean I'd be able to get a complete set of forks for less than the price of the bits, this approach has work in the past for my other bikes and a bit of patience here may pay off if I'm lucky.

In the 70s and 80s (when Italy was bankrupt- nowt so new in the world!) I think the Italian Govt. made the manufacturers use Italian manufactured parts. My 500 Sport forks are exactly like my Laverda RGS...... check 350/500 Guzzi, 500 Laverda, Benelli etc. Also some of the Jap bikes are made in Italy, the Dart front disc is the same as a Yamaha.

Mike

I'm in a similar situation to you at the moment. My searches came up with two suppliers: Tarozzi fork tubes at Wemoto (Ducati Pantah) at £99 each or All Bike Engineering (ABE)in London at £80 each. Allbike tubes are made in England. Both prices are including VAT, but not sure about postage. ABE also offer a rechrome/regrind service but I don't know about the price. 'Still looking' mentioned Philpots (AKA Fitforx) in Luton - they ask £156 to rechrome/regrind. EVguru did mention on an earlier thread that he wasn't too happy with a set he had done by Philpots, but he didn't expand as to what the problem was. Disco Volante have no stock of Pantah tubes.
When you look further afield, the British prices seem good - TNK in Italy for example want 163 euro's per tube!
As for me? I have ordered a set through Wemoto via a friend in the bike trade, and expect to get them in about 2-3 weeks time.