Front fork trivia - need help identifying unknown Z forks

[Niek]

Hello all,

it's Niek (pronounced "Neik") from the Netherlands here. I've been lurking around for quite some time and finally got round to do some scribbling.

Last year a friend asked me to help restore his wife's Z1000-J2. She bought this bike back in 1984 (!) and hasn't bothered with owt else since. She rode her blue machine for some 18 odd years and then nature called - 2 baby girls entered the scene. This invariably meant there wasn't much time to ride so the bike was garaged for about 7 years.

Fast forward to 2008 when I collected the bike in a very sorry state. It would be easiest to list what was NOT wrong with it... but I will refrain from that and get to the point, which is the front fork.

After stripping the forks, I had the inner fork legs rechromed to perfection... only to find out they're not J2 items. According to the lady owner, the original forks were bent in a spill and got replaced by a pair of forks from an unknown Kawasaki, alledgedly an 1100 of some sort.

In the meantime, I sourced an old pair of J2 fork legs which I had rechromed. I also sourced a pair of brand spanking new J2 outer fork legs in Germany (yippee!!!) along with 2 pairs of guide bushings so I have a new and original J2 fork. Excellent stuff.

Which leaves me with one question: can anyone tell me what bike these fork legs are from? Here's some pics to (hopefully) clarify matters.


distance fork bottom to guide bush recess (9.99 mm)


fork diameter (37.89 mm)


guide bush recess diameter (36.03 mm)


guide bush recess heigth (20.12 mm)


fork length (643 mm)


slimmed down bottom part diameter (37.66 mm)


slimmed down bottom part length (130 mm)


overall view with J2 fork tops (which fit without a problem)

Can anyone shine a light on this? Oh and seeing as these forks are no longer needed, they are for sale (shameless plug). Thanks in advance!

Niek

[Niek]

bump

[chrisNI]

It might be easier to identify them from the fork lowers if we could see the axle clamps and the brake caliper mountings. The stanchion pictures only help if you have dismantled forks to compare to - can you put up some pics of the rest of them?

[Niek]

Will do that asap.

FYI the fork lowers appear identical to J2 items with regards to brake calipers mounts, mudguard mounts etc. Anyway I'll keep you posted.

Cheers,
Niek

[Al]

Better late than never!!!

Just got the forks out of the J1 and heres what they measure up at.

10mm


37.??


36.??


20.12 agreed


643mm agreed


130mm give or take


Fork top caps are the same as yours and dimensions are near as dammit is to swearing the same.
These are the forks from my J1 1981 and fit the description.

Bottom legs
Left hand side outer surface


Left hand side inner surface.

I have no reason to believe that these are not J1 forks as the rest of the bike is fairy original.

Hope this helps.


AL

[Niek]

Dear Al,

hats off to you sir, I owe you a large amount of your favourite brew!

Looks like the fork legs are indeed J1 items. The outer fork legs (which I still haven't got round to posting yet) are exactly the same as yours. Cool.

As far as the lower bushings are concerned: Dave from Z-Power shared his knowledge with me on this. Simply order the lower bushings from a GPZ900R (part number 44013-1219) and Bob's your uncle.

Hope this helps. If you have any questions regarding J forks, just ask!

Cheers,
Niek

[Al]

The 1100 model they might have come from is the B1 or possibly B2 but really not sure about this. In my parts list the bits look the same and i think have the same part nos. but that is not a good guide.
I know some of the internals are different and one has two rebound springs-the other only one, for example.

Thanks for the tip about bushes for the lowers. That is gold right there.

Are they still for sale or have you off-loaded them yet?

I do have a question for you. If you have an internal mic i would be interested to know what the internal diameter is, of the new lower bottles you bought.

Many thanks.


AL

[Pasc]

I replaced the bushes on my J2 forks with the Gpz9 items. They don't exactly fit first go but don't take much modification. The bush will have a slit along the side. You will need to trim an extra 2 or 3 mm of one side of the split for the bush to close up snugly on the J leg. 5 minute job with a dremel.

[Al]

Thanks again Pasc.

Never noticed it before but the fork lowers have K8 01 R and respectively K8 01 L cast on the inner surfaces.
Both have the number 1 stamped in-to a circle just below this.

Hope this is of some use Niek



AL

[fuknuckle]

They look a lot like H**** CB forks, 900/1100 perhaps,