Leading Link (5)

If this is your first attempt at building a Leading Link, and if your finding some of this to be confusing to understand, I strongly suggest you make a trip to Home Depot and pick up a few dollars worth of 1x2 and 2x2 pine wood sticks This matterial will closely resemble the size of the metal your going to be using to build your front end. Use the wood to cut our the same size and shape items as your front end and from that you can determine how its going to work. You can prop up your mock up at different angles and be able to see what happens when you change the angle or change the height. You will very quickly learn just what you need to do bgefore you actually start to cut metal. You will find as I did, just how easy it is to build a Leading Link and make it do just what you want it to do.As a general rule, if you increase the rake angle and keep the same height of the head, you will need to lengthen your forks to achive the same trail. Lower the head height and you shorten the forks. Its best to decide at what height you think you want your head to be, then build to that figure.

     Fork legs

Ok, now we have rockers made, and the bottom of the fork legs done. We need to make some finale decisions now before we can go any farther. You must decide how high you want your head to be off the ground and also at what rake angle you want your front end to be. These two things are critical to know before you can go any farther. Any changes made to either of those things, will have an effect on your trail and length of your forks in order to make it all work. I like a rake angle of about 38 degrees using a simple angle finder. But you must decide for yourself what you want, but decide now. Ok, I know from past experience that my head needs to be around 23" off the ground and my forks will be about 29" long. Using these numbers, I know I will be able to fit the forks on my rockers to get the trail of about 1 1/2: that I want for excelent steering. If you use different height or rake, you'll need to do some mock up to figure out what length your forks need to be. This photo shows my forks with 3/4" nuts welded inside. I use 3/4" because the nuts only need to be ground down a little on two sides to fit nicely inside the legs. Weld them in place and clean it up and lets move on to the next step.