Earls fork forgings.......... just how many different ones

[schrader7032]

As for the lower cross bracing in front of the engine cover, Slabon's book mentions two types. The early one was a conical curved piece. With the advent of the bulge in the front cover (~1961) to accomodate the damper, the flat curved piece was flattened somewhat.

I can't seem to find any part numbers for the front fork, the part that contains this curved bracing. I thought the part numbers might give some clue as to different versions.

There were also differences in the abililty to grease the front swingarm bearings (with and without a grease fitting) as well as changes in the lower bearings from ball bearings to tapered bearings. The steering stem bearings were always the ball type...

Kurt in S.A.

[EuroIron]

the forgings I am talking about specifically are

1) the one to which the stem anchors

2) the "knuckles" which have to holes for the two different swingarm positions

[bmwmyplace]

Is it possible that with the different lower castings you could be looking at R26 R27 as they look the same at a glance and I think from memory that there is a different trail angle and overall height not much But I have kept an R26 one aside with a view to using it in a conversion one day cheers Peter

[EuroIron]

I think there are some different lower castings for the earls found on the singles as well

my guess is that some of these various forgings are more correct for certain models and/or years than others

and this is excluding the 50/69s models, of course

[VBMWMO]

were made thru the years?

My guess is that nobody knows.

It would seem the opinion that they were all the same is quite popular but I've photographed examples of many variations.