My fork lowers are cosmetically not great with a number of stone chips I would like to repaint them does anyone know the paint colour on an nh196 scheme? Also any suggestions on how to prevent it happening again? Plastic or vynyl wrap perhaps?

If it's a post-89 model then the forks are the same colour as the engine (metallic brown). 'Ford graphite grey' appears to be the closest match:

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=28407&p=203700&hil ... ur#p203700

cheers
Ford graphite grey it is