82 & 83 front forks - some differences

[Cdnlouie]

I am in the midst of an 83 front fork upgrade to my 82 and noticed a few interesting differences.  The tubes are the same and the lower legs are the same lengths with the same internal working dimensions, but the key difference is 15mm longer springs for the 83  ???.  The preload spacers are about 20mm longer on the 83 and the air caps are 4mm deeper adding even more preload to the spring.  This no doubt compensates for the heavier full fairing.

I am adding compression damping to my fork system through a racetech valve so I need to decide which spring I want to go with.  I will have to experiment with the different spring rates.

[YellowJacket!]

do yo have the full measurements?  I had both my 82 and 83 front ends apart on the bench whenI went through the 83 upgrade last year.  I wonder if I mixed up damping rods.....hmmm

David

[Night Vision]

half an inch is huge when you only have 5 inches..... fork travel that is  ::)

[Cdnlouie]

Well...well I have to correct myself on the damping rod (looking superficially longer) and much to my own pleasure.  I corrected my post in case I give someone the wrong idea. The aluminum foot was damaged on the 82 I was measuring, making it 15mm longer.  You can breath a sigh of relief David, I was yanking your chain ;).  However, the spring is 15mm longer on the 83 unless I have an extremely sagged 82 spring on my hands.

I decided to check the manual and the 83 is exactly 15mm longer (free lenght 476mm).  There is a typo for the conversion to inches though, as it says 461mm equals 22.1 inches, but it should be 18.1 inches just is case that throws someone off  ???.

[YellowJacket!]

whew....

I ended up going with progressives and the 83 spacers with the 83 air caps.  My 83 uppers were bent so I used the 82 fork tube uppers which worked great.  If you need some damping rods, I NOW have some extras.  ;-)  I also have a couple sets of springs.  (82 and 83).  Not sure of the mileage on the 83's but the 82's have around 8000 miles on them.

David

[h2olawyer]

Just as a minor aside, 83 air caps will fit in the 82 tubes, but the 82 caps will not fit in 83 tubes.  The 83 tubes have the threads start deeper inside than the 82s.  I'm running 83 fork lowers with my original 82 uppers and the 83 air caps.  The 83 uppers I got were heavily pitted - to the point they are unusable - they would destroy fork seals in very short order.

More trivia than useful info, but may be of some help to someone trying to use 82 caps in 83 forks.

H₂O