Ha! That's funny!!
On so many levels....
The 1" is the
DIAMETER of the pipe, NOT THE LENGTH OF PIPE YOU CUT!!
The
preload is a PIECE of 1" diameter SCH-40 PVC that you cut to the preload YOU
desire.
I'm sorry...the juxtaposition of parts of things said over years of time that had to be juggled to come up with, 'Use a 1" (
long) spacer for preload' (for a
545mm spring!!!) is pricelessly hilarious!!!
And...I haven't just did this conversion..unless 4-5 years ago is 'just'.
OK...I've caught my breath from guffawing...
If your spring measurements are correctly stated and the spacer you used is indeed 25mm, what you got is 40+mm of preload. I didn't check the math..suffice to say you're WAY OFF!!
That's
worse than the OEM spacer!!
Where that will really be a problem is, you're not using 21# springs no more!!
You have NO free sag..probably no RACE sag on your forks. It's going to be terribly rough, you will have NO control in corners, the front end will be a very very bad POS...and that does NOT stand for Point Of Sale.
Actually, you didn't say what you weigh. If you're 320# or so, you might be OK.
Take them apart. That will include draining the oil you just put in.
Take out/off the spacer and the two cupped washers. Reassemble. Thread the cap all the way down on the rod. It does not have to be tight, but it does have to be snug. Don't worry about the jam nut, but don't let it interfere with the cap going on all the way. If you take the cap off as most do, the rod will be jammed at the
bottom of the rod threads, so it shouldn't be a problem.
So...you have the spring and the cap on the rod..no spacers or washers. Pull the cap and fully extend the rod. Don't worry about the tube. Measure the space between the top of the spring and the bottom of the cap. For sake of argument, let's say it's 25mm. Measure the flange of both the cupped washers..let's say they measure 3mm.
Those washers are going to take up space in the final assy, so you SUBTRACT their thickness from the measured value. That gives you...what?
22mm.
IF you cut a piece of the PVC to 22mm, you will have
zero preload.
Sooo..preload will be whatever is longer than 22! A 32mm piece would give you 10mm of preload.
All of the above is considering that you have springs that fit in your forks.
You said your springs measured 21.5". That's 546.1mm in my book.
Again, IF your figures are correct, you would have 15mm preload if you assembled the fork with NO spacer...and NO washers!!
No spacer isn't a problem. No washers is.
What we have here is
failure to communicate!!
But you DID figure correctly. I
DO know what I'm talking about.
Cheers!
**edit**
Yanno..actually it will probably be just fine..the springs coming out of a CR400 and all. As long as they are out of an
'04!
Oh no....I
can't breathe!!!