'Gold valves'?

[gatch]

Are all gold valves the same ? If not what are the major differences ? the little springs on them would vary yes ? Port sizes ?

I ask because I have access to a pair (unsure of what bike they come from) and have considered trying to make my own to suit my forks (I'm sure they are showa ky6 - 89 honda spada).

Am I barking up completely the wrong tree or is this doable ? I've got a project I'm working on and I would like to fabricate as much of the bits I can as possible, mostly to keep the cost down..

Any help would be great.
Cheers
Gatch

[cowpoos]

You need to talk to Robert Taylor...

[CookMySock]

[...] have considered trying to make my own to suit my forks [....] Am I barking up completely the wrong tree or is this doable ?

Do it. The technology is 50 years old, and is perfectly straight forward. Sure there are ultra modern versions of it, but a digressive valve is a digressive valve is a digressive valve.

I think you will have to buy the shims.

I found a NZ company making these valves some time ago. It occurred to me to write some CNC to make boxes of them for a dollar each, but someone else had done it already.

Steve

[gatch]

Do it. The technology is 50 years old, and is perfectly straight forward. Sure there are ultra modern versions of it, but a digressive valve is a digressive valve is a digressive valve.

I think you will have to buy the shims.

I found a NZ company making these valves some time ago. It occurred to me to write some CNC to make boxes of them for a dollar each, but someone else had done it already.

Steve

I don't know what the shims look like, although I have access to a surface grinder and a full catalog of drill sizes if need be.

[Pussy]

Are all gold valves the same ? If not what are the major differences ? the little springs on them would vary yes ? Port sizes ?

Yes, there are differing port sizes, diameters of units, spring preload tensions etc etc.
Cowpoos gives the best advice... talk to Robert Taylor. He knows about this sort of thing

[CookMySock]

I don't know what the shims look like, although I have access to a surface grinder and a full catalog of drill sizes if need be.

A shim looks like a thin flexible round disc with a hole in it. It's made of the same sort of steel the fingers on a feeler gauge is. The steel is apparantly quite special.

Steve

[gatch]

Right on, depending on the thickness I could probably punch some out, we've got a bunch of different size shim stock I could pinch, fuck its good being an engineer huh..

In saying that it'd probably be easier to buy them..

[Robert Taylor]

8% or more of the world economy is piracy. And in NZ making a fair and reasonable profit is something that many frown upon. Having respect for intellectual property is also something that many dont take seriously.
Yes there are many different designs and whilst some of it may look simple there is more than meets the eye, especially with the settings. Send me an image of the set you are looking at to my regular e-mail address.

[gatch]

Guilt.. The worst kind of trip..

Will try get a photo of said valves, however if they are unsuitable I will probably ask more questions about your retail pricing. Despite the cost I would rather get it right first time than fuck around with a home built item that may or may not do the job..

[CookMySock]

8% or more of the world economy is piracy.

Citroën cars had shim stack digressive suspension in 1954. My old Dad used to add and remove shims in his workshop 35 years ago. It was interesting telling him about Ohlins - he wandered off to his workshop and came back with a little digressive valve and asked "like this?" I wish I had taken a photo of it.

Search for the word "leaf" on this page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydropneumatic_suspension

Steve

[gatch]

Citroën cars had shim stack digressive suspension in 1954.

You mean the cv ?

[CookMySock]

You mean the cv ?

Actually it looks like it was 1955. The DS was the first car to fully utilise it. Dad had a number of them. Standard, they float around like a boat, but with a few extra shims in the shim stack, and a little more pressure in the spheres, and they went real good.

Steve

[gatch]

A dude that used to belong to our gun club had a cv, he'd charge in the gate at the rifle range and straight off the road across the paddock, I don't think a hover craft would have had a smoother ride across the grass.

You would have thought the boxes of ammo and various rifles would have flown all over the place, but no, safe as houses, safe as citreons in this case eh..

[CookMySock]

Yeah we used to scare hell out of people. Hitting traffic humps at about 90k/hr was our favourite. They nearly lept out the window, but nooooo the car flew over them without even a blink. We just looked at their white face and pissed ourselves laughing. Do that in a vehicle with progressive suspension and be prepared to launch into space..

Steve

[Robert Taylor]

Yeah we used to scare hell out of people. Hitting traffic humps at about 90k/hr was our favourite. They nearly lept out the window, but nooooo the car flew over them without even a blink. We just looked at their white face and pissed ourselves laughing. Do that in a vehicle with progressive suspension and be prepared to launch into space..

Steve

Yes indeed Citroen were very much the pioneers in this. Now 50 odd years on it rather proves a point that manufacture and performance owes more to price than it does to the fact that technology exists that would give us much better ride quality and control.
Because everything is price driven that is why we have so many makes and models with appallingly bad suspension.