The Chopper Compendium

Don't use those online calculators. I've never found one yet that is accurate for springers, leafers or girders. One guy at another site used the good one and it said he had 3" or trail but his full-sized mockup proved that he had 6.5" in reality.

You will have a lot of neg trail with the axle out front.....

Last night I did a full size drawing.The trail number I came up with using a 2 1/2" rocker ahead of the girdr forks was 4".Im drawing up 0 offset trees & hope to have another mock up with a different shape leg maybe tonight.

I am thinking of a Diamond/prism tank so I can may be have neg offset trees , also you can mount the pusher(in this case) forks on the axle, outside the wheel. You will most likely have to fab it all yourself and make the axle....the string stack will be above the lead spring... !

I had thought about trees with negative offset.I mocked up a set with 0 offset & came up with a fork design that Im happy with.Started on the steel trees today.

Got the trees made up & the legs in.Now I just need to add a little bend in the legs & weld.

looks good.

Thanks...I hope theres enough progress to take some more pics by end of weekend...Ill be partying hard by tomorrow afternoon, so its not lookin good.

I got the legs bent &set up.Now to make a set of rockers.I also need to mount the leaf spring & make up the rod that connects the spring to the axle.Oh I will need to make a new axle cause this front end is a little wider &the original axle isnt threaded.

good job jeff. keep up. if you got any q's just ask. i think you got this nipped.

I hate to say this but I think you cut your forks way to short for what you want to do. I'm sure you remembered to allow 1.5 to 2-inches for the weight of the bike on the spring and the angle of the rocker you're going to use. Pictures can be deceiving so I'm thinking that you already thought this out during your mockups.

You're right they are short.In order to get a desirable bend with running the rockers out front & have the trail number still come in,I will be welding a plate under & a little back from the end of the tube to mount the rockers from.So the pivot will be another 1 1/2" lower.Also I figured if I needed a little more, that I can Make a slight reverse rocker.If I read the article right, if the axle happens to fall below the pivot slightly it will give more trail?

I got a little more done today.I got the spring & the tabs where the rockers will mount on.We'll see if I can get it welded up tomorrow.I'll start on the rockers after that.

If I were to press sealed bearing into my rockers, will they hold up to the side loads when the bike leans in corners?

Bushings work better than bearings on forks so I'd stay with regular ol bushings.