'84 CR500 Fork Upgrade

[Momus]

I have an '84 CR500 that I am looking to do a fork upgrade on.

I want to keep the period appearance and am looking at the '88 CR units.
My question is if the '88 CR250 and '89 CR125 are the same basic units and if someone could confirm the staunchion diameters.

Marcus

[Nathan S]

Yes. The trainspotters (and switched-on scrutineers) can pick the difference from the outside, but the later cartridge forks go straight in to the earlier triple clamps. Brak caliper interchanges, no drama.

The general concencus is that Honda screwed up with the 88 forks - the action is a big step backward from the 87 (and 86) versions of the same forks.
If its only the valving, then its probably an easy fix in 2014. Not sure if they messed with things like bushes and stuff.

Not 100% sure on the axles. Worst case is that you need the axle, spacer and bearings to match the later forks.

Edit: And 43mm from 1983 to 1988 (89 for the CR125). The 86~95 XR250s have 41mm forks and XR650s have 46mm forks, so avoid them. Not sure about 96+ XR250s, XR400s or XR600s - the 600s didn't get cartridge forks until 90 or 91 anyhow.

[Racer X]

I have an '84 CR500 that I am looking to do a fork upgrade on.

I want to keep the period appearance and am looking at the '88 CR units.
My question is if the '88 CR250 and '89 CR125 are the same basic units and if someone could confirm the staunchion diameters.

Marcus

It would be a shame if you wanted to race the pre 85 class, it would make the bike inelligable!

[Momus]

It would be a shame if you wanted to race the pre 85 class, it would make the bike inelligable!

I'm not sure if I will run the CR500 in Pre 85. I've been out of it for a long time and plan to get back in the saddle, at least initially, on a Pre 75 CR125 and some sort of Evo thumper.

I can get the later CR cartridge conventionals via eBay for next to nothing and I thought I'd try a pair of them, and some emulators in the stock forks, for a comparison.

[Nathan S]

The stock cartridge forks aren't massively better than the stock forks with correctly set up emulators - certainly not enough of an improvement to be worth being bumped up an era.

The cartridge forks with some correctly set up gold valves and the right springs will be very good, even by modern standards.