Thanks for the welcome everyone.
Yeah, the parts bike was a silver frame, silver motor, red plastics version of the one I had, which was black black and more black but otherwise identical. I kinda liked the look of the red fenders instead. It
was a lotta black...
I checked the fork play, and there is indeed play between the lower tube and the upper slider on the one fork leg. Sigh.
I also discovered that there are air valves on the bottoms of these forks hidden under rubber plugs. Naturally, there was zero air pressure in 'em. I tried pumping them up to 6~8 psi, but I think something must be blocked. It would take next to no air and spike to 50+psi, but then one check with the gauge would be enough to bleed 'em back to 10psi, and the next check would be zero. It was acting like the volume being pumped up was tiny, rather than the large volume of the fork tube. We'll see...
Kirk