Fork Mod - 1 1/4" to 1 1/8"

[iRob]

Help please.

 

Rant on

I recently bought a 1995 Gary Fisher Montare from a bike shop in Cape Town. The guy really did his best to sell me this bike and if I'd known what he was sellingme I'd run. But anyway he offered a lot of extras which do kind of make up for him selling me a dud, and me buying a dud.

Rant off

 

I can use the bike for commuting and need to replace the fork - here is the tricky bit. The old Manitou had a 1 1/4 inch steerer. Most new fork (pre tapered steerers) are 1 1/4". Fixing this is proving costly. My current fix involves designing and manufacturing a bushing with an ID of 1 1/8' to fit a modern fork (Suntour makes one my LBs says retails for R890 - Vbrake mounts, remote lockout ALLES.) and a 1 1/4' OD to fit the frame head set. The problem with this is then finding bearings for the top and bottom - those diameter bearings are not easy to come by.

 

Has anyone had a similar situation or has there been a cheap fix for this?

 

Any constructive help is welcome......