It is possible to make the fork tool yourself. I built
the one shown in this article which was originally designed by Duane Ausherman.
It is made from a section of lower fork bracket from a wrecked bike. I simply
sawed off the end of the bracket on my table saw using a carbide blade and
then used a die grinder and sanding belt to clean things up. The rod is a
long BMW cylinder stud which just happens to have the same thread size as
the pinch bolt that originally resided in the bracket's threaded hole. Then
using a scrap of steel, I just brazed the lug onto the rod (it can also be
welded) and drilled and tapped a 1/4"x20 hole for a bolt and nut to affix
the dial indicator's lug back.
An easier solution might be as shown in this drawing. A top
view is shown here:
Use a piece of heavy-walled angle iron in aluminum about
three or four inches long, cut one face to be roughly at 90 degrees
to the fork tube. Drill and tap a hole to accept a standard type dial indicator
mount as shown. Use a 1" travel .001" tolerance indicator. If such
heavy stock cannot be found it could be made by bolting together two
pieces of
aluminum stock to form the 90 degree bracket section. Do not use steel
for this part as it might scratch the fork tubes.
Although this design might be a little more difficult to
use, it would be easy to build using not much more than a drill press and a
set of taps for threading the holes. It would be particularly good for
someone who already owns a dial indicator and the various mounting options for
it
as shown here (lug back, threaded rod, sliding mount). It would also
be
useful on a multitude of fork sizes as the diameter of the tubes would
not make
much difference and the dial indicator could be easily adjusted for
various tube spacings.
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