Re: Rust in front fork

[Ted Bennett]

> So I recently acquired a 36-year old reynolds 531 raleigh frame and
> when you shake the front fork you can hear what I presume are a few
> flakes of rust jostling about. There are drain holes near the fork
> tips. It does not sound like a lot of rust - perhaps one or two
> flakes maybe 1/4" in size. Apparently, the pieces of rust are too
> large to get down near the holes.
>
> This is irritating and i was wondering if there is anything i can do
> to remove the rust, and/or assess whether the fork has extensive
> internal rust and might be unsafe?
>
> - Don Gillies
> San Diego, CA

I may not even be rust, Don. Your fork was certainly brazed together,
rather than welded, and those may be small bits of braze stuff rattling
around in there.

There is no way that I know to remove them, short of drilling a big
enough hole to shake them out. Do NOT do that. You could try injecting
some Framesaver or similar gunk into the fork and see if that makes the
flakes stick so that they don't rattle.

While it is possible, it's unlikely that the fork would be rusted enough
to be dangerous. You could tap the fork all over and judge by the sound
if there any areas that may be much thinner than the rest of it.

One of my bikes has an eighty-year-old (yes, 80) fork, never had any
anti-rust treatment and it's still OK.

--
Ted Bennett
Portland OR

[andy borrows]

Be very, very wary of old forks. My bike has handbuilt 531 frameset
which is nearly as old as I am (48). Everything else has been replaced,
much of it several times, but the frame, and until last week the forks,
remained original.

Until last week... On my usual commute home from central London,
something felt amiss but I couldn't figure out what. I stopped to check
things over, couldn't find anything wrong, so pedalled off again. After
a few yards, one fork leg sheared off, the front wheel jammed in the
brakes and locked solid, bending the other fork leg back by six inches
and spitting me off the bike.

I fell to the left. If I'd fallen to the right I think my head have gone
under the car that was passing (roadspace was restricted due to
roadworks).

I was only doing a few mph. At normal speed, I'd have gone flying
straight over the handlebars and ended up in casualty, or worse, rather
than with just a few grazes and bruises.

The forks take a tremendous hammering and unlike the frame which is
triangulated they are simply cantilevered. I'd recommend getting a
magnifying glass out and inspecting yours very closely...



--
>--------------------------<
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[Chris Zacho The Wheelman]

Sheoot, the forks on my 87 Schwinn Voyager frameset jingled from the day
I walked out of the shop! My guess is what you're hearing is leftover
material from the brazing.

Peek into the frame tubes. They traveled the same roads under the same
conditions as the forks. If thet're not rusted away, the forks are
probaly just as good.

May you have the wind at your back.
And a really low gear for the hills!
Chris

Chris'Z Corner
"The Website for the Common Bicyclist":
http://www.geocities.com/czcorner

[David L. Johnson]

On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 11:51:23 +0000, Donald Gillies wrote:

> So I recently acquired a 36-year old reynolds 531 raleigh frame and when
> you shake the front fork you can hear what I presume are a few flakes of
> rust jostling about. There are drain holes near the fork tips. It does
> not sound like a lot of rust - perhaps one or two flakes maybe 1/4" in
> size. Apparently, the pieces of rust are too large to get down near the
> holes.

Why do you assume it's rust? The brazing sometimes leaves bits of metal
rattling around loose in the tubes. I have these in one old bike. No big
deal.
>
> This is irritating and i was wondering if there is anything i can do to
> remove the rust, and/or assess whether the fork has extensive internal
> rust and might be unsafe?

I*have two bikes of about the same vintage. While I was busy with young
children and an old house, and did not ride for several years, they hung
in my wet basement (it is a very old house). The paint was damaged, and
there was surface rust on the frames, but nothing serious.

--

David L. Johnson

__o | When you are up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember
_`\(,_ | that your initial objective was to drain the swamp. -- LBJ
(_)/ (_) |

[Jim Adney]

On 14 Aug 2003 11:51:23 -0700 (Donald Gillies)
wrote:

>So I recently acquired a 36-year old reynolds 531 raleigh frame and
>when you shake the front fork you can hear what I presume are a few
>flakes of rust jostling about. There are drain holes near the fork
>tips. It does not sound like a lot of rust - perhaps one or two
>flakes maybe 1/4" in size. Apparently, the pieces of rust are too
>large to get down near the holes.

The most common things to rattle around in there are chunks of brazing
flux which were left behind after brazing. If there were rust chunks
that large in there, there would also be smaller rust bits and you
could get lots of them out the holes. There's no doubt some rust, but
not likely enough to cause alarm.

I'd spray some oil in there. LPS-3 is my personal favorite.

-
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Jim Adney
Madison, WI 53711 USA
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[Jim Adney]

On 18 Aug 2003 07:43:34 +0950 andy borrows
> wrote:

>Jim: These are (or were!) "traditional" style forks, with a separate
>horizontal cross piece which joins the forks and the steerer tube,
>rather than the more modern kind where the top of the fork legs are bent
>inwards and join together. One leg cracked across the very top, where
>the fork tube enters the cross piece (which undoubtedly has a name but
>I'm afraid I don't know what). Interestingly, there's no sign of rusting
>on the surfaces of the break, so I guess the crack remained at a
>microscopic level and invisible under the paint until it finally decided
>to give up.

Andy,

The word you're looking for is "crown."

To have a fork blade just crack off right under the crown is pretty
unusual, except for Jobst, who had this happen to him several times
with Cinelli crowns. In your case, were the fork blades brazed into a
socket in the crown, or was there a protrusion in the crown that stuck
into the top of the blade and was then brazed in place?

Usually, in cases like this there will be visible differences in the
texture of the broken metal which will let you differentiate places
that had been broken for some time and worn against each other, as
opposed to those which broke at the last moment.

If it really all broke at once, I wonder if your front hub/QR had come
loose, allowing the wheel to slip sideways and break off the fork
blade.

-
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Jim Adney
Madison, WI 53711 USA
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[Jim Adney]

On 19 Aug 2003 05:53:37 +0950 andy borrows
> wrote:

>The forks that broke had the blades brazed into sockets in the crown.
>The hub is conventional non-QR, and both blades were still attached
>afterwards. For the last 4 years I've been doing a fairly high
>mileage (4,000 miles a year) but before that nothing special. Just
>bad luck I guess!

It's been years since i worked in a shop and saw bikes all day every
day, but I still think this is a pretty rare event.

>Just a thought... A couple of years ago I hit a pot-hole at speed which
>wrote off a pair of wheels (I managed to claim the cost back from the
>local council though. Also went out and bought a decent twin halogen
>light system!). That may have weakened the forks enough to start the
>crack developing.

Certainly possible, but I've straightened forks where both blades had
been bent back like your other one and which then went on to live out
normal lives. OTOH, I don't think anyone wants to straighten forks
anymore, simply because of the liability issues.

-
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Jim Adney
Madison, WI 53711 USA
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