Fork Mod

Pictured with thew stem I don’t like.

This Schwinn straight bar knock-off I bought a couple years ago takes a fork with a 1 1/8th inch steer tube. I didn’t have a fork that size and bought one used from my LBS. I did have one stem that would fit and have been using it but I don’t like it. Instead of buying a new stem I decided to see if I could adapt the fork to take a smaller sized stem which I have plenty to choose from.

There was too much of a difference between the diameters of the fork and any stems I had that a shim wouldn’t work so I decided to see if I had a piece of tubing with the correct outside and inside diameter I needed. To my surprise I did. Probably leftover from an old girls Schwinn 3 speed that I hacked up long ago. The tube was a snug fit in the fork and I drove it in with a small sledge hammer till it wouldn’t go any more.

 

Then using an angle grinder with a cut off wheel I cut off the excess flush with the top of the steer tube.

 

I doubt the tube I inserted would ever move but I went ahead and drilled some holes in the steer tube and welded it to the tube inside.

 

New stem, new handlebars and new brakes. I always had a hard time getting the brakes that I’d originally put on properly adjusted so a quick trip to the LBS and now I have new, better working brakes.

4 thoughts on “Fork Mod

  1. Great idea Randy. Could be reverse engineered to weld a sleeve around a threaded fork so you could use a threadless stem? The threaded section would need to be long to get the top nut on the headset as normal, then weld the sleeve on the top side of it all. If I had a welder I would try it. Happy Trails!

    1. Yeah that’s an idea. Never thought instead of buying this fork I could have tried adapting the steer tube of a 1″ fork that I already I had to fit the bike.

    1. Thanks. I’m sure some would cringe if they see what I’ve done to the fork. Those bars are just the first ones I grabbed that would fit the stem. We’ll see if they stay.

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