Hey guys, I wrecked my bike and am just wondering how I would go about determining whether the forks are straight.

any advise would be appreciated.

 

The only accurate way of doing it is to dismantle your forks and use a dial indicator to measure the runout of the tubes in thousands of an inch. You'll have to get the specs, but I dont think the runout can exceed .005". But again, I'm not sure of the exact spec. I dont know of a way to do it while the forks are still assembled. Unless its a really bad bend, it wont be obvious to the naked eye.

 

If it was me, I would take it to someone with experience in repairing crashed bikes. They would probably know what to look for and be able to tell you if they are bent or not. If in doubt, I would go ahead and replace them so you aren't worrying about it

 

How did you go down? High? low? Into a barrier?

 

Thanks for all the replies everyone.

Here's my story...
https://cbrforum.com/forum/f4i-main-forum-11/wrecked-89384/

But from what I can see they *look* straight. But I suppose the eyes can be decieving.

 

Quite a story. Looks like you have done a few burnouts on that rear too lol.
Like you said they look fine though. What i would do is throw about a hundred measurements on em. Mark them in symmetrical locations. Write down all of your numbers. It should all balance. If it doesn't add up then you will know something is awry. Possibly, even graph the numbers and scale everything down into a drawing.

 

Actually, I had never done a burn out... I don't know why the tire looks like that. Maybe something happened in the wreck to burn the rubber up.

 

Crash detective 101 says: It could be from the initial incident. 150 yrds past the instability point and you were still flying indicates that you probably had the rear brakes locked rather than the fronts which would have slowed you easily within 25yrds. ie: flat spot that looks like balding from burnouts. I think i read somewhere that over 75% of your breaking should come from the front. I suppose it would be kind of hard to feather the front in a "death wobble" though.