32 vs 35 forks

[Paul Danik]

Hi Larry, nice to hear from you.

   I bought some Hallman Racing literature awhile back and the one piece is for the Sachs powered KTM 125cc, looks to be a very early model with aluminum fenders and the early side stand pivot point. The machine is clearly being marketed as a KTM, not a Penton, and it has the 32mm forks. The literature is written in what must be Swedish and I can not read it, I looked for a mention of 32mm or 35mm in the text but I see none.

   I also looked in the KTM History book by Friedrich F. Ehn and on page 108, for any of you with this book, is a KTM display of what are clearly KTM branded machines that also have the louvered aircleaner sidecover as was used in Europe, and the forks are also 32mm.

     I make my fork size determination using the mounting points for the fork brace as the determining factor of the fork size as the 35mm that I am familiar with do not have those mounting bosses.

   Possibly the European machines changed over to the 35mm forks before the USA Penton branded machines did, but from what I can see it looks like at least the early Euro machines used the 32mm jobs as well.


Paul

PS  From what I understand the KTM history book that I mentioned was printed in either German or Italian, mine is in Italian so obviously I can not read the text, but as they say, " a picture is worth a thousand words", and this book is plum full of pictures. The link below is from eBay just provided to show what the cover looks like. I highly recommend that if you can get your hands on a copy of this book you will enjoy the "pictural history", I sure wish there was an English version.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/KTM-Weltmeistermarke-aus-Osterreich-Friedrich-F-Ehn-/131654867201?hash=item1ea73dd901:g:iTAAAOSwlV9WS71M

[brian kirby]

I'm pretty sure the early Euro KTMs follow the same production specs as those listed on the main POG page, which is to say, the '73 250 was the first bike to get 35mm forks, then in '74 everything got them.

Brian

[Larry Perkins]

No, Doug Wilford told me once that the bikes they received had the 32mm and the ones KTM was selling had 35mm when CMF bikes first came out.

Larry P

[brian kirby]

Interesting.

Brian