JD front fork ID

[aumick10]

I was going through my JD front ends and noticed one of them had some reinforcement added to the spring towers.
Does anybody know if this is an OEM part, and what year, It looks like it was stamped out, or very well hand made.
Cheers,
Mick20190120_111942[1].jpg

[Tommo]

Factory mod that came out in the mid to late 1929 model run.
Very rare item that will also have the strengthened bottom castings.

[aumick10]

Thanks Tommo, So this should match up with the full height brake anchor from 19 as well?
Cheers,
Mick

[Steve Swan]

Factory mod that came out in the mid to late 1929 model run.
Very rare item that will also have the strengthened bottom castings.

Wow, the factory was doing everything they could to keep a venerable design alive and going down the road.

[sswaney]

Thanks Mick for posting that. And thanks Tommo for identifing it.
That's the mod I was referring to in Steve's 27 Cutdown thread.
Tommo, just to clarify a bit, do you believe it was a running production change or were those improved forks intended for the JDH models?

[Steve Swan]

it's kind of hard for me to see in the picture, but that mod looks like a sort of sort of "layer" or "cover" on top of the actual fork tube...? does this layer go down the top tube, over the casting and further down the tube? with the horror of conditions of minimum to no maintenance roads and even trails these bikes bikes rode over in those days, i would think the relative lightweight nature and design of these forks was under strong duress and took real beatingS.

[aumick10]

Steve,
The "cover" goes down from about midway down the spring tube and covers the bottom casting. It does not extend any further down.
It looks to be a stamped unit that is brazed onto the assembled casting/tube.

[Steve Swan]

Steve,
The "cover" goes down from about midway down the spring tube and covers the bottom casting. It does not extend any further down.
It looks to be a stamped unit that is brazed onto the assembled casting/tube.

Thanks Mick. what a lovely rare fork!

[Tommo]

Here in NZ those mods are generally credited to being JDH parts but as I've said elsewhere period photos do exist with those parts visible on JD's.
I've never found a photo of a 1929 J with those bits visible.
Maybe Chris has some good factory photos that show those 1929 only features.
The pictures in "The Legend Begins" are not clear enough to show those details.
I try and look out some period photos that show what we're talking about.
Don't hold your breath though as I'm flat out readying my 1927 and chair for our National Motorcycle rally and also have the Pukekohe Classic Motorcycle Race meeting to attend next week so the pressure's on.
I'll only promise that I will reply when I can and that may leave some of you wondering if I'm just ignoring you. I'm not doing that I'm just pushed for time at present.

[Tommo]

sswaney,
I should add that no one that I've talked to can tell me exactly when those mods were introduced.
The only thing that's known for sure is that they were 1929 only features.