Took a trip to the bottom of a ditch....

A

accidentprone315

New Member
Finally have my first crash under my belt. My 1971 CL450 and I took a trip into ditch, which to my surprise was home to 1 million ants. Since everyone will ask I have to fess up to my shame. The reason I crashed is because I didn't put up my kick stand. As it so happens left hand turns are hard to make when it's down. I fractured my clavicle pretty good, I'm now fitted with a bar of stainless steel.

So, the front forks are pretty badly bent. Does anyone know what years I can replace them with? I see some for '72 '73 and '74 on ebay. There's a few 71's but they look pretty rough and missing components. Other than that both control perches are broken, bent left blinkers, and a dent in the tank. My main concern is are the forks. Suggestions?
 
Nope.. The 71 has an oddity of forks.. Instead of tapered top portions it has a reduced groove in them. To my knowledge there is not a single bike that has the same exact set up... If you look at my cl450 build you'll see I wanted to lower mine so I had a triple tree on the shelf from a cb750 and I swapped it out and had some adapters made for the tops so the fork nuts would stop where they are supposed to and it looks uniform.

As far as what you should do IMO is the post 71 cb/cl450 and up to cb750 have almost the same exact front end. So any model cb 450-750 models and cl450 after 72 have very similar forks. These are a dime a dozen and easily replaceable IF you happen to dump it again.. Replace tree and forks. Might as well do fork seals, tapered steering bearings and replace the ATF fluid in the forks while you have it all apart. Cheap upgrades/maintenance.

On another bad note is that your bike has the 5" headlight and more narrow forks. most others are 7" and have wider forks so you'll need to replace the front end ENTIRELY unless you get some machined parts to keep your front drum and the like. I wanted the front drum so I had spacers made for my rim/hub as well. I also wanted the larger 7 inch headlight so I bought aftermarket brackets to hold it all together...

Check out my build thread on this swap and let me know if you have any questions. Shoot me a PM or reply to the thread.
 
Glad you made it out with all your limbs though! But hey, look at it this way. If a tornado would have come through, that ditch is a pretty safe place to be ;)


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Sorry to hear about the crash but the first time tends to make one a better rider, if you survive okay.

You could try Forking by Frank.

http://www.frankmain.com/
 
I was watching "Let It Ride" this morning and they built a bobber from an old triumph. When he took it out for the "first ride" I noticed something odd. Your kickstand down riding trick is catching on. I wonder if his grandfather Mr Arlen Ness taught him that.
 
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