Checked all my triple trees and found an old set of Yamaha ones that, in my opinion, had the best combination of offset and trail for the 25 degrees of rake that the bike now has. They were only for 34mm forks so made up a quick boring bar to take them out to the 36mm required for the Kawasaki forks.
As I don't have my mill set up yet I had to use a little drill press that I have. Found a bit of plate to bolt the trees to which was then bolted to the drill press bed. The mandrel on the boring bar is exactly 34mm which enabled fairly accurate alignment of the triple tree to the boring bar. Did a test run on the lathe to set the key steel in exactly the right place to bore to 36mm, which was very fiddly and took ages.
Bored the first one and it went well until the guide mandrel came through the bottom and it started to chatter a bit.
Quickly made up another mandrel at a shade under 36mm which stopped the chattering at the bottom.
Finished all four holes which all came out quite well. Bead blasted the top tree ready for powdercoating but the bottom one must be in two pack as the bead blaster wouldn't touch it. Will have to get some paint stripper on to that.
Have to fit the forks up into the frame then work out how much they will need to be shortened. Can't drop them through much as the bars are across the top of the fork tubes. Also have to weld a lug onto the lower left hand leg for the front brake plate lug.
