What if you had your fork legs powdercoated? Will the thickness of the coating affect fitment?

What if you had your fork legs powdercoated? Will the thickness of the coating affect fitment?

I can't answer with 100% accuracy as I personally do not have my fork legs powdercoated, but several individuals here on the XLForum have their fork legs powdercoated black, with no apparent problems or issues.

Engine, if the coater is a motorcycle guy they will know what surfaces to stay away from. I learned this the hard way. I have black rocker covers that leak because of this. Just make sure they mask off the areas you want to be left alone.

I had my lower fork sliders black anodised - very strong finish and no problem with fitment.

Cheers,

Brett

I can't answer with 100% accuracy as I personally do not have my fork legs powdercoated, but several individuals here on the XLForum have their fork legs powdercoated black, with no apparent problems or issues.I think he's talking about the upper tubes not the sliders. Sliders are no problem. I don't know about the tubes, they have to seal up against the inside of the oil seals. And they also slide through the copper bushings. I bet the bushings would make a mess out of powder coat.

I'm not an expert but I think some sort of chemical processing would be best. I don't think anodizing will work on the upper tubes, because they aren't aluminum (or I don't think they're aluminum).

I'm interested to hear what you discover Eddie.

Gazza

I've never seen anything other than chrome on the tubes - it needs to be very hard wearing and non-porous.

Cheers,

Brett

What if you had your fork legs powdercoated? Will the thickness of the coating affect fitment?

I bought a black superbrace last year (planning to eventually blacken my forks) and asked them about this scenario. They had two suggestions: Have the powder coater mask off the area where the superbrace will contact, or lighlty sand the inside of the brace until it sits flush when mounted.

I'm talking about the lower legs, not the sliders. The fork brace mounts in the lower legs (half on the legs, and half over the dust cover).
My lower legs are already coated, so maksing off is already too late.

http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l267/eastcoasteddie/140_4035.jpg

Never seen the fork tubes powdercoated. I would think you could run into some sealing problems with that senario. 'Course, like Ralph said, find the right guy and he could make it happen.....:geek:geek:geek

sliders are lowers, and powdercoat will not work on tubes, too much seal action on there, maybe black chrome ?

OK let's get something straight here. No one ever said anything about powdercoating the tubes. I know that it is a big no-no to do that; and I'm not sure where anyone got that idea that I wanted to do it. Only powdercoating that's done is on the lower legs, or sliders (sorry, my bad on the previous post).
My question is that will the fitment of the fork brace be affected by the powdercoating that is on the sliders (lower legs) already, since the coating is a couple millimeters thick.
Tick pretty much answered the question in his post.

I think you should atleast look into anodizing as well. That is how storz does their black forks. Not sure of how durable the finnish is but anodizing is a much thinner coating. Their trees are also anidized.

Let's hope powder coating is not a couple of millimeters thick (x2 = .079"). But, anodizing is only a few tenths of a thousandth thick.

As far as the tubes, black ceramic finishing would look and wear tough. Requires a tough wallet too $$$$$$$$.