Mini Manitou Three

Kevhl

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I've seen a couple of old threads about building mini manitous, always fancied having a go but I've never wanted to cut up a nice fork.
Found a suitable set recently and had a go at the weekend. Here's a quick overview, click on the pics for fullsize:

Stanchions were split and scored, they bits were a bit of a mess.


A combination of nail hardener, lacquer, satin black and they look better. Whether they last like this is another question. (the split ends werent done as they're being cut off)


Cut the dropouts off and put a slit in them with a hacksaw blade, a bit of work in the vice and a couple of holes and the remnants of the legs came out pretty easily.


Both legs cut to size.


Make shift hub bolted up so I could press (read hammer) the dropouts on. (also glued them)


Dropouts in place, took a bit of welly for them to go on fully.


Assembled fork with M4 disk as comparison.



Quick clean up then chucked them on the lads little Kona.


I'm running a custom spring set in just one leg, which is basically just three engine valve springs and some 3D printed spring seats I made.
The nice elastomers are in the M4 now rather than the springs I had in there.
Still need to polish these up properly and will probably remove the canti hanger from the brace. Might make some mini Manitou stickers as well.
Cool little fork, loads lighter than the rubbish that was on there and they actually work so much better for a lightweight kid than they ever did for an adult.
 
Awesome work Kev, glad to see they've been of use to someone......I had plans to turn the legs into table lamps! ;)
 
Thank you. Going to keep my eye out for more donar forks, really enjoyed making these; great to recycle something that was way past useful fo a full size bike!
 
I think these are the 5th maybe 6th set I've bought... all of the others were too good and I sold them on to be used as they should. (other than the disc ones I have)
 
Re:

Okay, started my first attempt yesterday.
This is how far I got !





It is actually really fun doing this kind of jobs.
Now I need to find out how much to shorten the inner part and not compromise the amount of travel ;-)
 
Awesome! Nicely done.

I cut off the top section of the internals just above the seat for the top out bumper... so the top out bumper and bottom of the spring/elastomer stack sit either side of it rather than having a couple of inches of plastic between them. I also cut in a new slot for the bottom out bumper which allowed for a little more travel than normal; however I was using a Mani3 so the original internals only had one option for the bottom out washer whereas my Mani4's have the stock option and a longer travel option with EFC stamped on it.
I also made my own top and bottom out bumpers which were approx 10mm long so in theory I think my little fork could see 70-80mm travel but realistically wont.
Hope that makes sense.
 
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