suspenders...

[Percanto]

Hi guys, I'm about to embark on a strip-down of the front forks of my 92 Trident to replace a leaking seal. As far as i know the forks are in original spec, i.e. soft and non-adjustable. I've been toying with the idea of upgrading the springs, to some of the higher-rated springs from Sprint Manufacturing. Has anyone tried this? It seems to be a relatively cheap mod, bearing in mind that I can't really justify the cost of racetech gear, or getting a professional rebuild by Maxton or similar - I could easily end up spending a good chunk of the value of the bike on extras! Anything else I should be looking at while I have the forks apart?

BTW, in the Haynes manual I noticed a reference to 'early Tridents with fork modifier kit fitted' - does anyone know what this refers to (it gives a different oil level in the specs)?

[Readmarx]

If you're thinking about changing springs you may want to consider changing the weight of the oil. I'm no expert, but it may involve a stiffer spring with slightly lighter weight oil and perhaps a change in the oil level. Wherever you get your springs from I'd phone about first e.g. maxton, hagon, sprint, etc and see what advice you can get about oil weight and levels. good luck.

[mah40]

I put some Hagon springs in three years ago what a improvement! It's nice to find a relatively cheap upgrade that improves the front end by at least 75%..

regards
Mark

[Percanto]

Thanks guys, hadn't thought of Hagon. It would match the rear... I'll check them out. They've got a table on the website with oil and gap advice, which is useful.

[trypcil]

There seems to be two variants for the trident, in terms of oil level. "For vin# bikes - from 4901*! - oil grade 10sae at a level of 94mm max. For Vin# 4902* sae of 10 wt again but 109mm but because '*' means cannot be filled over -97mm. And '*!' means where motorcycles that have been modified to a later fork condition, the post vin4902 figures must be applied. Kits to modify cycles to the post vin 9083 condition are not available - that's from the Triumph manual! I imagine your's being a 92 (and un-modified), an early one - so 94mm with the fork compressed is going to be the level/air gap. You can make a gauge from a biro case, a plastic circle with a hole in it, some tubing and a turkey baster. Drill a 2mm hole about 1.5cm from the bottom of the biro casing - which you should seal. Measure from the hole to the plastic circle: which you put the biro case thru' the middle off ....tube - etc... and squeeze the bulb! Hagon 'progressives' with 15wt and maybe a bigger spacer tube would firm up the dive! That's with a stock pull thru' of 25mm.

[Percanto]

Thanks for the biro tip Trypcil! I'll have to talk to suppliers about spacers - I'm sure they'll be able to give me an idea of exactly what I need with harder springs fitted - I think I've made up my mind on doing the upgrade over the next few weeks.

[Percanto]

Right, today I finally finished the installation of a set of new progressive springs from Sprint Manufacturing. I used the standard weight oil (10W) air gap (94mm) and spacer (didn't measure). The only hitch in the whole installation was that the spring seat didn't fit inside the tight coils at the 'hard' end of the spring, so I've installed them with the loose coils towards the top. I know this runs against the wisdom of Haynes, but the physicist in me, and the handful of people I've spoken to, tells me that this shouldn't effect the operation (force is distributed equally through the spring).

After couple of rides today, I can happily report that the springs do exactly as claimed: Firmer across the range of movement, with much less fork dive under moderate braking. I've just replaced the front disks and pads, so I haven't been able to test in anger yet!

The biggest change seems to be in the handling - turn in seems much more positive now, less 'squishy', and requires much less effort from me to take the line I want! There is noticably more 'road noise' through the bars (particularly with the aweful roads we have in the UK) but with this I'm getting more feed-back, I've now got a better idea of what the front tyre's doing. Overall the whole bike seems more balaced now - I've got a hagon shock at the back and I just haven't been able to get the front and rear working together until now.

So, if anyone with an old-school T3 wants a quick, cheap way of transforming the handling, I'd thoroughly recommend this mod!

[ezride]

While you're at it, you might try another free handling mod: lower the front end.

When I had the forks on my sprint rebuilt, I reinstalled them 1/2" higher in the triple clamps. Improves response and makes the bike feel more nimble.