Les at LT-Racing used to make some nice teflon fork protectors.
They were split at the rear, so you can install them without removing the forks.
I contacted Les about these. He did at one time make some. But now there is a Husky bolt on one.
This is a copy of my e-mail coming back from Les at LTracing.... SEE PIC BELOW.
Well, good on you! What you made is called a "rub ring".
I was always amazed how GasGas never supplied a rub ring on their Marzocchi forks, the later models at least had a groove machined in the tube and they used a fat circlip similar to other manufacturers. A lot of this wear can be eliminated by properly shifting the brake line sleeve enough to have more slack in the brake line between the fork guard clamp and the caliper. But, most people don't even notice this until it is too late.
In 2004 and later I sold a boat load of these Marzocchi 45 rub rings that Husqvarna supplied with their bikes as "stock equipment" It was Husqvarna part # 8000 93283, a picture of this part is attached to this e-mail. If I remember correctly, less than $10 each? I also designed and hand machined several sets of these for the 50 mm Zoke twin chamber GasGas fork, they didn't put rub rings on this one either! These were similar to the Husky 45 mm Zoke design. Took awhile to make them and lost bunch of time & money because most people didn't get it, until it was way too late! Jeff who runs the GG rider website has a set of the 50's I made on one of his bikes.
In the end, pretty poor not to have this provision in the first place from the factory, but that's just my opinion!
And from a second e-mail.....
The P/N I used was for '05 TE's, and the 610's/630's all with Marzocchi 45 forks until BMW sold to KTM, so it should cover earlier versions as nothing changed dimensionally all along the line. This part also fit the 46 Ohlins GG, but it was a stretch, I have them fit to a couple of Ohlins I have instead of the circlip.
For the SKF mud scrapers or sliders they offer, the fork MUST have a circlip groove machined into the leg, I don't recall this being done on most GG applications. Later models (like '08? maybe later) had a plastic rub ring but I can't exactly recall the groove dimensions used for the SKF product to fit correctly.
The Husky part was pretty robust, have yet to ever see one wear out for certain.
Les Tinius, LT-Racing
Tel. 360-871-2259
Fax: 360-326-7282
Mail;
les@lt-racing.com
Website;
www.lt-racing.com
I hope this helps some of you guys as it would have saved some work for me. Al
