'88 750 Sport - Mystery Binding Forks On Replacement Front End

I noticed for the first time today that the speedo drive has one ‘tab’ to catch the wheel but the wheel has two ‘slots’ for the speedo drive, which suggests the drive does not match the wheels.

That said, I had the axle only hand tight today and both sets of pinch bolts loose and it was still binding after repeated bounce and pushed against the wall.

 

I was wondering whether it might be the axle itself - if that was wrong eg if the step in the axle was not the correct length or the axle itself was a couple of mm out that would have an issue. If the speedo drive or the spacer was thinner then that could cause the issue I guess?

 

All really good feedback guys.

I know about one crash in its lifetime, but don’t know why it’s not a pair because the ‘crashed’ forks are still on there. I did see the post about the chrome and it looks same and the binding is at only very early compression, is it identical? No but also both untoward. The thread that accepts the axle into the captive side does rotate if they pinch bolts are loosened. Yesterday I did actually push the axle through the floating leg completely to see if it was locking but it passed through with minimal effort. Even so I completely removed the pinch bolts today when testing.

I like the idea of the measuring, Will do that tomorrow. A good friend who is an experienced motorcycle mechanic and enthusiast has volunteered to take a look next weekend and I’m hopeful that will save me!

All really good feedback as I say, has definitely made me double check everything. I appreciate your input and I will report any progress.

 

I'm back to post on other things but thought I'd close off this thread.

Turns out it was a spacing issue, and a very thin spacer on the RH sorted it but after changing the discs from the rattling old racing brembo floaters and put some new road discs on we had to then remove that spacer and machine down the LH spacer by a 1.5mm and we have it all lined up and working.

A side-note, I always thought my forks were the 41mm Showa that have the rebound on top and compression at the bottom, so adjusted them accordingly but never finding an ideal setting. I later discovered they were actually the much rarer ones that have the clickers the other way around. So very happy with how the front feels now.