Mini Project for My Other Ride

I decided to have my other ride, a Honda Tiger 2000 '97 motorbike, shipped to Lampung, the city where i work. I am glad i decided to do so since now i've another toy to play with. Since its arrival, my bike has been burning holes in my pocket. First, it asked for an engine overhaul and i had to oversize the cylinder to fit 1 mm larger piston. Once done, it unleashed powers i never knew it had!

This is a writeup on the second thing i did to my bike.. Not so long ago, this was for sale on honda-tiger.or.id:
Yup, that's a set of upsidedown fork taken from an Aprilia. It was sold together with the 4-pistons Brembo brake and disc brake as shown. The day they arrived in Lampung, i picked them up and took them straight to an Authorized Honda Service Station together along with my bike. The first thing the mechanic did was this..
Despite to what the seller claimed before i bought it, we quickly found out that it was not an easy pull-out-plug-in process. The major obstacle we found was that the fork's steering tube would not fit the standard headset. The steering tube diameter was a tad too big for the headset to fit.

There are three options to solve said problem. First one is to oversize the headset bearings to snug them. This is the fastest way but the least cost-effective on the long run. There are two pairs of headset bearings, the top and bottom pair. Every time you need to replace these headsets, you need to oversize them. The second option is to downsize the steering tube. I avoided going this way because the steering tube is hollow and i was afraid that downsizing the tube would compromise strength since the tube wall would be thinner. The last option and the most expensive way is to make another steering tube having smaller diameter and fit it to the triple-tree. The steering tube should be made of a strong metal, preferable out of a non-hollow metal shaft. I decided to go this way since it would be cheaper on the long run while still maintaining steering tube strength. I can just fit the standard headset to the steering tube.

I took the Aprilia and standard triple trees here..
If you're from Lampung and also a motorfreak, this place should look familiar to you. It's one of the few milling workshop in Lampung located in Enggal area. Anyway, though from outside it doesn't look presentable, these monster machines are purring inside the workshop..
How i wish i could have my own milling workshop one day.. I can manufacture almost any metal stuff if i have one. Anyway, these are the triple trees.. I leave it to you to guess which is the Aprilia and which is stock.
and this is the metal shaft which will be engineered to make it similar to the standard steering tube and fitted to the Aprilia triple tree.
It was fun watching the whole manufacturing process. It makes you think that these milling workers can literally make anything from their workshop. They are also nice enough to allow me take pics of whole the process. After some measuring, the metal bar was milled down to the required diameter..
This would get you a shinier metal bar having the correct diameter to snug the headset in. After it, comes the threading process. You need to make a thread for the triple tree crown holder.
After that, the worker added some "meat" by welding around the other end of the bar. This is necessary since you'll be fitting this skinnier steering tube to where the bigger Aprilia tube was. The "meat" will later be milled down again to the same diameter as the Aprilia tube.

Finally, it was cut to length and fitted to the Aprilia triple tree. Here's the end result.
Amazing isn't it? It cost me 15 bucks to make this steering tube. I took it back to the service station and after one night of being separated from my bike with loads of measuring and welding done to it, this is how my baby looks like now..
Oooops.. wrong pic.. *ahem*.. okay this is it..
compare it with this old shot..
Looks tons better, eh? The Service Station mechanic had to figure out a way to install the gauge and headlamp. That's why it took him two days to finish the job, including the time to work on the triple-tree. I have to lose my right rearview-mirror. It usually sits together with the stock brake handle and because i am now using Brembo brake, the stock brake handle was replaced together with the mounting hole for the mirror.
Now that i have a very big front disk brake, my rear drum brake looks off. Installing an aftermarket rear disk brake kit surely would balance it out. Hmm.. *peeks inside wallet* ...