It’s always amusing that you can fit front dampers to Lambretta forks worth hundreds of pounds but at the other end of the fork link is a plastic bush that is prone to wear, or may be too tight.
In either of those scenarios your expensive damper is fighting a losing battle to properly regulate your suspension.
In the past an expensive needle roller bearing conversion was developed by racers from the British and US scooter scenes, and sold by Vince Mross when he ran West Coast Lambretta Works.
More recently Ian Frankland – now consulting at Taffspeed Wildcat LTD – has begun developing his own upgrade parts, of which one is a new fork link bearing conversion using much cheaper sealed ball bearings.
The kit comes with a central spacer tube and 0.5mm outer shims that fit between the bearings and the large outer dust washers. A special dowel tool is required to keep all the parts in line while the fork link bolt is pushed through.
Two 1mm fork spindle shims are also supplied to ensure the fork links are not subjected to side loads when the main axle bolt is tightened. Ball bearings are not as robust as needle rollers and will not last long if subjected to excessive side-loads.
Ian has given us one of these and we plan to fit them in the next set of Lambretta forks that we build.
The bearing conversion kit has an introductory price of £30 + £4 post and is available by emailing terrible.taff@gmail.com
Complete kit as supplied
It’s always amusing that you can fit front dampers to Lambretta forks worth hundreds of pounds but at the other end of the fork link is a plastic bush that is prone to wear, or may be too tight.
In either of those scenarios your expensive damper is fighting a losing battle to properly regulate your suspension.
In the past an expensive needle roller bearing conversion was developed by racers from the British and US scooter scenes, and sold by Vince Mross when he ran West Coast Lambretta Works.
More recently Ian Frankland – now consulting at Taffspeed Wildcat LTD – has begun developing his own upgrade parts, of which one is a new fork link bearing conversion using much cheaper sealed ball bearings.
The kit comes with a central spacer tube and 0.5mm outer shims that fit between the bearings and the large outer dust washers. A special dowel tool is required to keep all the parts in line while the fork link bolt is pushed through.
Two 1mm fork spindle shims are also supplied to ensure the fork links are not subjected to side loads when the main axle bolt is tightened. Ball bearings are not as robust as needle rollers and will not last long if subjected to excessive side-loads.
Ian has given us one of these and we plan to fit them in the next set of Lambretta forks that we build.
The bearing conversion kit has an introductory price of £30 + £4 post and is available by emailing terrible.taff@gmail.com
I know Ian sadly passed away and possibly a lot of the ideas he held in his head may have gone with him….however did anyone else ever pick up on the mod and offer it for commercial sale?