• Welcome, Guest! We hope you enjoy the excellent technical knowledge, event information and discussions that the BMW MOA forum provides. Some forum content will be hidden from you if you remain logged out. If you want to view all content, please click the 'Log in' button above and enter your BMW MOA username and password.

    If you are not an MOA member, why not take the time to join the club, so you can enjoy posting on the forum, the BMW Owners News magazine, and all of the discounts and benefits the BMW MOA offers?

Need a good new top yoke for the Triple Tree of my 1993 R100RS

sfletcher04

New member
My top yoke is the horrible cheap BMW original. For what ever reason this cheap piece of flat steel is not flat (it's wavy) and the hole the steering head shaft goes through is not even close to round !! Fixing this bike up to ride so this has to get fixed. The bike has the later 38.5 mm diameter fork tubes.

Can somebody recommend a better after-market top yoke replacement I can buy and get for next weekend. Father's day so I'm hoping I can tinker and make some progress.
 
Not sure about next weekend, but the Toaster Tan top brace is a work of art:

http://www.pbase.com/toastertan/top_braces

You'd have to email him and see what he had in stock. (BTW...I never could understand his username...Toaster Tan. Finally read something on the Airmail list and because of the email program he was using, he had to drop the last letter, for Toaster Tank. I'm behind on my digest emails, but TT was involved in a pretty serious accident about 9 months ago...he got a serious wobble on his /5...I haven't heard how he's doing.)

I've heard so-so about the old San Jose top brace...pretty roughly made I understand...I'm not sure if they're making them anymore...could find one on ebay, etc. Based upon recent accounts something that is made from billet and machined as opposed to casting will result in a better product.
 
If you are looking for San Jose clamps on e-bay, you might want to be careful. The current SJ clamps are made from billet. I have an older one that appears to be sand-cast and which has broken (had it repaired by a TIG guy) - the casting was a bit porus - plus, I had to do a bit of mill work to get the stem hole to fit over my stem. Having said that, the style of clamp that "locks" the tops of the fork tubes into position relative to each other and the stem made a positive difference that even I could detect.

Those Toster Tan jobs look like something NASA would have made for the Apollo program.
 
I'll second Kurt's observation...the Toaster Tan brace is a work of art. I had one on my recently sold R100RS. Last I heard, he's relocating to the Seattle area (IIRC), tho, so I don't know how responsive he'd be to orders for a while. It would be worth the wait, tho.
 
I had the SJ piece on my '84 R100. Very nice piece. But if it's just function you're after and you're not vintage racing, a Telefix fork brace is all you need. But the SJ piece is gorgeous...
 
Back
Top