first look: the front end

I got the front end out of storage and started giving it a bit of a clean, mostly to see if everything looked ok and complete. What I see so far is good. There are no cracks or pitting or rust. Ok, there is some slight scoring on one of the stanchions but at least at first glance it doesn't appear to be something worth worrying about. One of the things to look out for on this type of fork are the alloy "caps" that clamp under the wheel spindle; they are retained by an arrangement of four studs and nuts per side and they can often be improperly tightened. Excessive and uneven stress can result in cracks, leaving often no choice other than replacing the damaged parts. In this case they appear to be in good shape and all the threads are very good. The brake plate anchor is also intact and complete with its thick washer/spacer.

Upon closer inspection I noticed something. You will see that there is a thin rib that runs the length of each slider. This was originally polished at the factory as a nice detailing touch. At the bottom end of this rib you'll find a small screw that plugs the oil draining point. On the left hand side, it looks like this point might have come in contact with something abrasive at moderate speed... It's hard to say what or how, I doubt it was dropped because there aren't any other marks anywhere else and there would be other protruding points that would come in contact with the tarmac before that. Anyway, it's not very noticeable and there isn't any real damage. I'll probably replace the screws though (and the washers, of course).