Forum

[mart]

Hi I have a piar of Thunderbird ( I think ) forks. Mr H's cable carrier is 5/16 BSF but the thread in the fork is M8. Hitchcocks have checked the parts book and apparently metric ones are not specified. any ideas? easy enough to make up something but a standard one would save a lot of hassle. thanks

[stinkwheel]

Drill it out/run a 5/16 tap through and put a nut on the back? There's generally a nut on there anyway.

Fit a 5/16 thread insert? (last set of forks I bought, I drilled them out and fitted inserts before I even fitted them to the bike to save time repairing them later.

[Adrian]

I'd go with Stinkwheel on a 5/16" BSF Heli-coil™ or similar. The casting looks beefy enough at that point, and even the mightiest 6" SLS front drum won't exactly be testing it to destruction.

I just had a look in my Indian "Retired Models" parts book, and there is only one of these listed for all the drum brake Bullets, the 141192, same as our hosts stock! Could be this is an after-market fork slider rather than an OEM, the manufacturer might not have wanted to use two different sets of taps for the brake cable carrier lug and the mudguard bolt holes!

Some of the fairly recent Indian home market UCE 350s were still drum brake and maybe THEY have gone metric for this item, but I don't have a parts book for these. I do however have a set of these forks for a 350 Bullet project and I will check what's on there.

A.

[mart]

thanks for the advice. good idea. I bought the forks from you Adrian, so was hoping you would know !!! cheers

[stinkwheel]

It can be hard to tell with some indian cut threads if they are metric or cycle thread anyway. Sometimes neither fits...

[Adrian]

Now you mention it, I think they were part of the deal for your '95 Bullet frame. They were after-market too, I think they were shipped in a box with Craftsman (?) brand labels.

Anyway, I checked my UCE drum brake forks, and I can confirm, regardless of their non-appearance in our hosts' warehouse, M8 front brake cable carriers ARE a thing! No, you can't have mine.



So a little digging around on the internet finds an on-line UCE Bullet parts book, and the part number for the M8 replacement of 141192 is 147626/A. A little more digging produces THIS, which I only post here as our hosts don't have any. This lot takes Paypal.

https://www.investdayy.com/index.php?ma ... _id=682930

A.

[mart]

good result- thanks Adrian !!

[Adrian]

Just out of curiosity I checked the brake cable carrier boss on another set of late Indian drum brake forks - 350 Electra with central mudguard mount.

Was it tapped for M8?

No.

5/16" BSF?

No.

Just a plain hole. Use either version with a nut behind it...

A.

[mart]

Thanks for going to the trouble of sourcing this Adrian. £3.60 for the part plus £21 shipping would you believe? Ouch! Plan B I think

[Adrian]

I can a possible deterrent from ordering one, maybe if you wanted 500 of them? Judging by the fact that our hosts have never come across these, they're probably in no rush to get any in.

A.