Fork alignment 1951 G3LS

[murraymck]

I am restoring a bike I bought as a complete box of parts and have started by getting the frame, suspension and wheels done so as I get the rest done I can fit the bits into something that can at least support itself.

I have done the rear suspension and finished rebuilding the lower front forks. I had to make completely new dampers as they were rusted away. The stanchions had small amounts of pitting and were bent. I straightened them and got them metal-sprayed and ground to the correct original diameter. The lower chrome covers that retain the oil seal and bearing were rusted and badly bashed around so I remade them out of stainless and polished them, so I have now moved up to the fork yoke. I have repaired the dents and scrapes in the spring covers and was about to start to make stainless rings to replace the badly rusted and pitted chrome ones that were on there.

Quite by chance last night I happened on a YouTube video clip of thus guy straightening a fork yoke. Out of curiosity this morning, knowing the stanchions were bent prior to my straightening them, I grabbed the yoke tube in the soft jaws of my vice and slid the stanchions in and offered the fork crown on top. I nipped up the lower bolts in the crown and to my horror when I looked across the two stanchions they were quite significantly out of line. To check I also laid two rulers across the stanchions and looking along them from the bottom to the top the left leg well is forward of the right.
There is a very small amount of wiggle when I loosen the bolts but nothing like what I seem to need to correct the problem. I have read the posts in the forum but these all relate to correcting misalignment once assembled.

My dilemma is do I ignore it and carry on with the assembly and hope I can correct it by the methods mentioned in the posts. However from an engineering point of view it appears something is wrong because I would have thought the fork crown once tightened up would determine the stanchion alignment and everything else would fit up to that. It is a fairly substantial casting particularly the bosses where the stanchions pass through so they get a pretty good grip on things. Further to that anything that is done to the fork yoke of course will impact on the alignment of the stanchions into the fork crown.

Can anyone offer any gems of wisdom that may offer a solution and get me back on track.

Thanks
Murray