Wheel travel?

RangerBrad

Member
Joined
May 5, 2015
Messages
38
Location
Booneville, AR
I’ve recently had promoto progressive springs installed in front forks and a complete work done by a local shop.
When setting my sag I noticed something that’s got me wondering. When front is lifted off the ground. My measurement from the top of the black fork cap to the bottom of the seal dust cover is only 7.75 inches. The total wheel travel for my 2013 super tenere is listed at 7.5 inches.
How is this possible? It doesn’t make since to me.
Could someone out there please tell me what the measurement on their front fork using the same starting and ending point is when your forks are fully extended?
 

jrusell

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Joined
Aug 23, 2017
Messages
460
Location
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
Yes between 195-198mm is correct.
When your fork is bottomed out you will have between 5-8mm of chrome still showing. I don't see the problem you are having?
This pic is with the bike on the centre stand, so you would see 2-3 mm more if I lifted the front tire off the ground which explains the difference between your and my numbers.

BB269F32-52AF-465A-A9CC-7A7DAD0F6A3C.jpeg682468AD-422B-416B-9ED8-732F13B04515.jpeg
 

Boris

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Dec 21, 2013
Messages
2,051
Location
midlands. UK
My front wheel is currently out, my measurements are the same as jrusell is showing.
 

Sierra1

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Nov 7, 2016
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14,815
Location
Joshua TX
Looking at my forks, I've used about 6" of my travel. . . . and have never left the pavement.
 

jrusell

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Joined
Aug 23, 2017
Messages
460
Location
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
I think you may be confusing what determines bottom out on your forks.

Bottom out is not when the fork outer/wiper hits the bottom lug on the fork.
On the damper rod in the cartridge of your fork there is a bottom out piston/bumper. As the fork compresses this bumper travels down to the top of the cartridge and eventually it hits the top of the cartridge. This is what limits fork travel, not the outer hitting the fork lug.

On some bikes bottom out may leave 20-30mm or more of the chrome tube exposed at full compression, while on others they might be very close only 1 or 2mm from touching each other.

Do not be concerned your bike is fine.

Here is a generic pic of what it looks like. Ours looks slightly different. Metal piston attached to damper rod, as it approaches the top of the cartridge it slides inside the shiny portion. This shiny portion will be full of oil and there is a very close tolerance between the outer diameter of the bottom out piston and the inner diameter of the top of the cartridge. The oil is trapped and causes lots of resistance in the final 1-1.5 inches of travel to prevent a solid metal to metal contact and damage to the inner cartridge. So this is our oil lock or bottom out device if you want to call it that.
C8902A9A-90AD-4D2C-A170-5830E5212D3C.jpeg
 

RangerBrad

Member
Joined
May 5, 2015
Messages
38
Location
Booneville, AR
Jrusell, yes this is what I meant. Knowing the actual stop is appx. 1” above the nut cap, even at full extension it can only descend about 6.75” inches before hitting the stop. I was concerned because after setting sag properly I am bottoming out regularly and noticed that when I did, fork oil actually sprayed out of the seals. My thought was to much fork oil and causing a vacume not allowing the fork to extend all the way but I can see now that is not an issue. Thanks guys.
 

RangerBrad

Member
Joined
May 5, 2015
Messages
38
Location
Booneville, AR
I’ve ridden it about 2000 miles since the Work was done and had no problems till recently when traveling rough roads. It doesn’t leak when sitting in the garage or driving on pavement, only when traveling rough gravel roads with lots of deep pot holes. I’ve returned it to the shop and their going to check it out.
 
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