Monday 5 March 2012

Bandit GSF400...forks upgrades

As I mention in a previous post  I've gain a lot of info and more from a great SUZUKI Bandit forum that I couldn't find during the first build. With the newly gain info I was finally able to make  the choice on the GSXR750 forks to do the upgrade to the front-end of my Bandit. The other possible choices I could have gone with were the Thunercat 6 forks that a UK Guy fitted to his 400 bandit. Another was the RGV 250 USD forks which was my first choice that someone in Germany had fitted to his B4.  But at the time was told  that the RGV forks are the same as the gsxr400 and are shorter then the original bandit forks and would lower the front!.

Another possible fitments see the link on my link page is the ZX6R636 forks link-being fitted to an SV650. The SV650 is said to be 99% the same to the 1 ! / 2gen bandits, But I haven't  heard of anyone fitting ZX6R636 forks to a 400 bandit.. Plus being much newer are most likely to cost lot more..as I found.
I could have just upgraded the original bandit forks but I've heard two many of these who have, in the end still charge-out the original forks for something else. The reasons' I went with the 750 forks were many, Although mainly-like the RGV 250 USD.. I like the look of the 750 USD forks and believe them to give the best ride. I wanted something I knew that would work first time off that had already been done. The other good thing with the 1990-1995 forks is that on ebay they are numerous GSXR750 USD forks that can be had for a good price.

The items in the photos regards to the state of polishing have since moved on since those photos were taking.

The GSXR750 forks are the ones' most choose to fit to their bandits in general, although most just throw them straight in without doing anything to them 'ie' paint / polishes..I've gone with polishing them at the moment, the forks are now totally dismantled to replace a seal that was letting the polish's finish down so it had to go. Once dismantle I found the guide bushes, of which there are two of each in each fork tube were getting on the wrong side of worn. (I will go in to this more in a later post)  I will say although, if you need to replace seals/bushes in set of forks that are not original to the bike, and you don't have the "chassis no" for them don't just order an item/s, lets say off ebay that are said to be for the same year as your item's is...It May and more then likely won't be the right size part. Send or take your old worn part into where you are going to buy them. It will save you a lot of time, trouble and money.
I'm been told that the GSXR750 USD fork, 1994 years that I have for mine has many diff. Sizes bushes fitted during 1994s forks.
The USD fork fitted to the GSXR750 bike start from about 1990 in the UK and 1991 in USA but from 1996 the Speedo no longer run off the front wheel so if you choose to use forks from 96 you would need to fit digital Speedo/tach in place of the original Speedo/tach and I wanted to keep the original clocks myself.

Present-2nd build




















2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please keep the info/blog going. I've just bought a B4 and hope to do the same to mine along with a single sided swinger. So any advice/information you can give on the process you are going through, will be greatly recieved.

Much appreciated,
Tom.

Unique said...

Hi Tom.. thanks for the comment
a single sided swinger would look nice on b4. I was going that way till I give-up the idea. The pivot point is the trouble the b4 is something between 218/220 max where the s.s like triumph are 228 and and other around 284mm Ducati would look the nice! what they are? I now gone with RF900 swinger,perhaps thats next post!!.
Dek/Unique