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While fitting up my hydraglide folk assembly for my 1953, a problem arose that I haven't seen before.
With the fork tubs fully assembled and placed into the upper and lower fork brackets, when sliding on the lower legs, the right leg sits higher than the left leg - by a LOT. The difference is a gap of almost 3/8" between the upper axle saddle and the fat circumference of the axle on the right side. So the right leg sits high, or the left leg sits low when installed onto the fork tube assemblies.
As far as I can tell, I believe that I've checked everything that comes to mind such as the fork tube lengths, the parallel elevations of the bottom edges of the installed fork tubes, the parallel elevations at the bottoms of the slide-on lower bushings (46121-48), and the locked-in fit of the fork tube assembly in the upper bracket ((56121-48).
Given the above, i appears that the problem is in one of the lower legs. I thought that somewhere along the way, maybe someone 'customized' something and machined the inside of one of the legs. However, when checking the depth to which the lower busing sits against the inside, lower base of the legs, both measurements are the same at approximately 13-3/4" to the top of the legs. Also, the protruding thread length of the attachment studs at the bottoms of the lower legs are almost identical. Everything SHOULD fit - and yet there is a 3/8" gap between the axle and the right side lower leg axle saddle.
All the parts are OEM, although I acquired both lower legs separately years ago, and i don't know their history. But according to the parts book all panhead fork tubes (45950-48) should be the same as well as the lower legs (45800-48/50 and 45805-48/50) with the -48 legs being painted black in 1949 only.
This one defies geometric logic and really has me scratching my head. Has anyone had similar experience or any suggestions?
With the fork tubs fully assembled and placed into the upper and lower fork brackets, when sliding on the lower legs, the right leg sits higher than the left leg - by a LOT. The difference is a gap of almost 3/8" between the upper axle saddle and the fat circumference of the axle on the right side. So the right leg sits high, or the left leg sits low when installed onto the fork tube assemblies.
As far as I can tell, I believe that I've checked everything that comes to mind such as the fork tube lengths, the parallel elevations of the bottom edges of the installed fork tubes, the parallel elevations at the bottoms of the slide-on lower bushings (46121-48), and the locked-in fit of the fork tube assembly in the upper bracket ((56121-48).
Given the above, i appears that the problem is in one of the lower legs. I thought that somewhere along the way, maybe someone 'customized' something and machined the inside of one of the legs. However, when checking the depth to which the lower busing sits against the inside, lower base of the legs, both measurements are the same at approximately 13-3/4" to the top of the legs. Also, the protruding thread length of the attachment studs at the bottoms of the lower legs are almost identical. Everything SHOULD fit - and yet there is a 3/8" gap between the axle and the right side lower leg axle saddle.
All the parts are OEM, although I acquired both lower legs separately years ago, and i don't know their history. But according to the parts book all panhead fork tubes (45950-48) should be the same as well as the lower legs (45800-48/50 and 45805-48/50) with the -48 legs being painted black in 1949 only.
This one defies geometric logic and really has me scratching my head. Has anyone had similar experience or any suggestions?
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