I managed to get a great deal on a slightly beat up Specialized Expedition on craigslist. The cranks/hubs spin like butter and have no play or give whatsoever and the frame is in good condition. The bike should be more than capable of handling my daily commute and some light trails once I fix it up.

Okay to the point, the suspension fork is completely shot. It has a 1'' quill stem, and I was wanting to get a 1 1/8'' threadless fork for the bike and get a threadless stem and handlebar setup on it. I've honestly never even touched a bike with a quill stem before so this is all new to me and I'm not sure if it's possible to just slap a 1 1/8'' threadless fork on the bike or if theres a compatibility issue making it impossible or way more effort than it's worth. I know I could just use a threadless adapter if I had to, but I'd really like to ditch quill stems altogether in this bike. So, what exactly are my options here?

If you have a 1" fork now, you can get a 1" threadless. 1 1/8 will not fit in a 1" hole.
Or, get a regular 1" threaded fork, and get a stem adapter so you can use a modern stem with it. That's what I use on my classic steel road bike.

You are not going to be able to fit a modern fork in the bike as they are 1.125... you can adapt the stem with an adaptor.

For your daily commute and light trails a suspension corrected rigid fork should do just fine with the right tyres.

One might be able to find a 1 inch suspension fork in good condition... models from this era tend to be pretty primitive compared to what you can get now.

Welcome to the forums!

If the bike came with a 1" quill stem, then it has a 1" threaded fork and a 1" threaded headset. Unfortunately, you cannot put a 1-1/8" threadless fork on it as the bike's headtube is designed to accept a 1" steerer.

However, there are still some 1" threadless forks available like this one: RST Gila T6 80mm Fork Black with 1" threadless steerer (Amazon). But you have to buy a 1" threadless headset, and a shim/adapter for current threadless stems for 1" steerers.

Or as Homebre01 suggested, get a quill stem adapter so that you can use a modern stem on it.

I have a kludge , made possible with a tube steel stem raiser ... A wedge in the tube is at the bottom, is in the fork's inside diameter 7/8"

it flares out midway up to be the same outside diameter as the rest of the fork steerer..

Being a hollow tube, up top , makes using a star nut in it and bypassing the thread, a non threaded headset of 1" type can be used .

spacers a shim under a 9//8" stem can be used .. then the headset is adjustable with the top cap bolt ..


If the threaded headset/fork steerer is still fine, Adaptor is a simpler solid piece machined 7/8" at the bottom.
and 9/8" on the top , and then a stem can be attached directly. headset isstill intact..



Somewhat confused since in the 80's the Expedition was their Touring bike model like Trek's 520. now its apparently a Hybrid.

It is a hybrid now, however they still market it as a touring/recreational bike apparently.

Okay after taking a measurement with a caliper, the fork IS actually 1 1/8'' threaded with a quill stem. In my ignorance of threaded forks I just assumed it was 1'' since that's all i'd ever heard of. So looks like I don't have a problem after all. Time to shop for forks!

I checked Specialized's website, it confuses me why even the 2014 model of the Expedition still comes with quill stems... they could just as easy put an adjustable threadless stem/fork on there.

But anyway thanks for your advice guys, I'm sure i'll have more questions on this forum since this is my first major bike restoration project.

Steerer Tube .. 7/8" ID, 1" OD and, .. 1"ID & 9/8" OD ..

Merry Sales/SOMA has a widget to put a quill stem in a threadless fork, if it matters ..

For the stem you can buy an adapter for about ten dollars but why bother. If you go on EBAY you can find about any type of quill stem you might want and the same goes for the one inch fork.