Hey Ernie, old thread so hopefully you still frequent the forum! I also have Mean Street forks on my Bourget though mine are what they called “Forkzilla” LOL with the huge 78mm upper tubes and 41mm sliding tube (stanchion), and like you it’s been nearly impossible to get any information on them. Originally it was even nearly impossible to find out what brand the forks were…nobody knew until I talked to Tony at Big Tony’s Chopper Shop down in Florida. Tony knew immediately…he said “Yeah those are Mean Street - they went out of business”. So then I went about tracking down Mean Street. Discovered that there were two brothers Mike and Tim Hanlon and they went out of business probably a decade ago. They’re both from El Paso. I ended up speaking to Mike and he was pretty cool but he didn’t have a lot of info to give me. He said he didn’t have any documentation and he didn’t remember a lot of the things because it’s been so long. I then tracked down Tim Hanlon on Facebook and messaged him and he got back to me and answered a couple of questions that I’ve had since getting the bike in 2015. For mine he told me to use 10w fork oil and 12oz of oil. Other sizes of forks would be different volume I imagine. Like you, it was a bit of a discovery taking them apart because of course no one could tell me how they were put together! I was very interested to see your photos and experience of taking the bottom foot off. My damper rod seems to be working fine and I didn’t think I would take off the foot because they can be such a pain to get off and I didn’t wanna take a chance on damaging the threads. I have however been unbelievably curious as to how the damper rod is connected to the tube and I could almost see the bottom of the tube in your photo. I didn’t see a bolt or an Allen head opening on the bottom of your tube but the angle was kind of hard to see. Were you able to tell how the damper rod is attached to the bottom tube? Is there a bolt there coming up from the bottom or is the damper just held in place by the foot being screwed on? Is the damper screwed into the bottom of the leg somehow? I noticed there were flats on what looks like the bottom of the damper/tube? Also, I was puzzling over how to source a replacement wiper seal and your post here was supremely helpful! My plastic rings were also chewed up though mine were a whitish yellow color. After seeing your post I now realize that somebody had sliced up the seal to get them on as they probably had trouble like you did. I’m thinking if you take a very thin piece of material maybe wax paper? And wrap it around the leg and then get the seal started should be able to get it on and off the tube easier? Thank you for all your many photos and that photo from the O-ring store. It looks like you have 41mm tubes as well because that 1.625 inch wiper seal would be the right size for 41mm tubes.
