Got some more work done on the weekend. Deleted the silly ABS, worked on getting the Roketa carrying rack to fit the Lifan, laced an old Honda DID aluminum rim to the front, re-wired the speedo cluster, ignition and gear indicator from the Roketa to fit and dismantled the front forks.
There was a clunk in the left fork when the brake was applied, and all of the oil had leaked out. Son of Weldangrind and I took the fork apart, along with one of the rusted forks from the Roketa, and found that a bushing was missing from the Lifan fork. In the (blurry) pic below, look just below the seal, and you'll see a gold anodized section that is about 1/2" in height. There is supposed to be a bushing in there, so the telescoping portion rocked in the tube.
We decided to just use one of the Roketa tubes, because aside from being corroded, it was complete and in good shape. Since the tube looked awful, I removed the anodized coating from both tubes with oven cleaner, and wiped them clean in about one minute. Son of Weldangrind then polished both tubes, but he decided that they need some colour. In the pic below, you can see the pair of tubes after I hit them with some primer, and a sample of a polished tube. There is a small section about 2" above my hand that is polished.
I don't have colour shots at this time, but I sprayed them with Duplicolor high heat red paint, and they look quite good. I'm really impressed with how that paint lays down, and we'll see how long it lasts once the forks are in use. I'll post more pics as work continues.