| Author | Message | ||
     Swimmonkey |
I went on a ride this morning and experienced something I have never had before - head shake on sweepers. History: almost never ride the bike with out panniers and top case. Bike is well maintained and the suspension is set up pretty well (for stock suspension). Steering head bearings have been checked. I'm running Bridgestone Battlax tires front and rear. (The have about 4K on them and have been okay) Tire pressure is good and there is not scalloping or cupping - front or rear. Today: Had all bags on (empty.) No GPS or iPhone on bars. Buell tall wind screen. Nothing unusual at all. Early in the ride on about a 90 MPH sweeper I experienced some head shake. This happened again two times during the ride. Just before I get to me house, there is a great open road section that usually has little or no traffic. There is a great sweeper that I have blasted through countless times on different bikes for years. I hit this curve today at about 100MPH or so and my Ully went into, what almost became a tank "air box cover" slapper. I rolled off the throttle and dragged a little rear break to settle the bike down. Scared the sh!t out of me. I'm more than a little perplexed as to why the bike is suddenly doing this. I've looked at other posts regarding this topic and may be missing the answer to why this is happening and what the suggested fix may be. Can any of you please help? - thanks in advance! | ||
| Ourdee |
Was there a head wind or heavy cross wind? | ||
| Swimmonkey |
Ourdee - No not any heavy winds. Thanks | ||
| Ulynut |
Some tires get a little goofy when they get some miles on them. I've never run those though. Is the rear squared off at all? Also, was your body position the same as usual, or were you sitting back a little further? | ||
| Swimmonkey |
Ulynut - The rear is a little worn but pretty evenly. I ride a lot of twisty roads so not squared off at all. I have ridden Battlax on some of my sport bikes. First set on the Ully. I was up on the seat weighting the front end as usual when riding hard. - Thank you | ||
| Okc99 |
Rain groves in the road. I had a shake in Oklahoma on Hwy 40. Finally figured it was the road once I moved East! It was like a sinewave shake. | ||
| Tootal |
How many miles on the bike? Even though the steering head bearings are adjusted properly they may be worn. Mine were "clicking" at only 12000 miles. When I removed them there was rust on the sides of the bearings.  Rusty grease is always a bad sign. | ||
| Etennuly |
Re-torque the steering head bearings, if you feel the need to pull them to check for the rust you might as well put a set in. I have never had mine out but have re-torqued them two times. The first at about 8,000 where it felt real loose and would shake a bit when cornering. In combination with the loose steering head bearings it had the D616 front tire on it, then at more than half worn. My front brake was pulsing so bad then, if I just touched the front brake in a corner it would go nuts. Lyndall pads fixed ninety percent of that. | ||
| Tootal |
Vern, In his original post he said that the bearings had been checked, so I assumed he meant retorqued. But now I'm thinking maybe he just raised the front wheel and tried to feel play. If that's the case then he should do as you say and retorque. Remember to loosen the lower tree clamps first, then the nut clamp and then loosen the nut and torque to spec. Take a marker and make a line at the crack of the nut clamp on the nut. After you loosen and retorque you will see if it tightened up any. That will tell you if you were waisting your time or not! | ||
| Etennuly |
Also, if you elevate the front tire off the ground with no load on the forks they will freely flop side to side if they are too loose, supposed to be like 7in lbs of force to turn if I recall correctly. Book too far.....butt too tired!  | ||
| Tootal |
BEER TOO EMPTY!  | ||
| Etennuly |
Well Greg, how do you think I feel, no beers and cannot sleep. I hate it when that happens. Cold beers are about 100 feet away.....but that would require getting up.....not gonna happen unless I go to bed. | ||
| Swimmonkey |
Thanks for the responses from all of you. I have checked the torque. Sorry I did not define checking. I will take all of your suggestions into consideration and spend a bit of time trying your fixes. Tootal,I did not loosen the lower tree clamps before checking torque. I will try that. The road I was riding on is smooth and very clean pavement. No rain grooves. Not any clicking or rust evident so I don't suspect any oxidation or excessive bearing ware. I'm just a bit disappointed because, with all of the little things one deals when owning a Buell, the handling is always a bright spot that makes me want to keep this bike till the wheels fall off. I'll keep you all informed of my progress. Cheers | ||
| Tootal |
Swimmonkey, when you tighten the nut your compressing the upper and lower trees together. If the bottom is not loose you are only trying to squeeze the two trees together and if they are stiff enough you will hit your torque spec. but not tighten the bearings at all. I hope that fixes it. | ||
| Swimmonkey |
Thanks Tootal - I appreciate all of your help. | ||
| Glenn |
Hi Jon, Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I've been away for a few days doing some great riding in WV. No I haven't really found a solution that I'm happy with yet and still hoping to get some testing by another who has done the 2008 tree mod. However I did find that I had more rear spring pre-load in than I thought and testing yesterday, I would get a little wobble at 50 to 60 or so but it would settle out quickly. I did not wish to try it any faster than that and it was improved from a couple of weeks back. As I mentioned last week, I re-checked the torque on my head bearings. I loosened the lower clamp but did not loosen the cap nut load on the bearings and then re-tighten. The reason is that the manual says to do that to check for freedom side to side. On my Beemer, if you need torque, you apply it only. The need to loosen to get a good torque only doesn't make sense to me but who knows? My bearings were already torqued properly and not surprised since I had done them about 5K ago. Still wondering about the reduced trail being a factor for me. This is not an issue for your stock bike. Glenn | ||
| Tootal |
Glenn, The reason to break the nut loose before torquing is because it takes more torque to get it started than what you're looking for as a final torque. Even when you loosen it you have initial torque to break it loose and then it gets easy. That's why you should break it loose first. If you don't have anti-sieze on your threads it might be a good idea to remove the nut and apply some. This takes the friction of the threads away from the equation. Even a little under the nut would help. When you torque the heads on an engine you always lubricate the threads and under the nut/bolt head. This just gives you a more accurate reading. Did any of that make sense?  | ||
| Glenn |
Hi Tootal, The breakaway torque does make sense to me. I just wished that I had done this when I checked it a couple of weeks ago. Sometimes I rush and then think about the what ifs after I'm done. In fact I usually do this! Don't want to start a thread war here but I'm not keen on the use of any thread lubricant for this application. You can easily over torque if a connection is meant to be torqued dry and clean. It can also be easier to loosen up on you later when you don't want it to. I do use anti-sieze on spark plugs, axles, exhaust studs, etc. since they're meant for its use there and the torque values are decreased to prevent over torque. I also noticed in another thread that you tried to get your bike to shake at multiple speeds and couldn't. This is good! I'm going to redo my head bearings this weekend. Thanks for your input and help. | ||
| Swimmonkey |
A little update on whats going on from my end: First, No worries Glenn. I'm envious of the WV ride. I would love to hit that area again. My in-laws live in Pittsburgh. I would love to ride up that way and split off to hit WV and some of the SE Ohio roads I used to ride. I called my Buell mechanic and told him about my issue and he immediately said, "start with the fork oil". I changed my fork oil at 10K but do a lot of dirt road riding. We're checking the steering head bearings and checking the rear suspension as well. I should have the bike back on the road this weekend. Hopefully I'll have a good report at that time. Thanks again to all! | ||
| Okc99 |
Guess my rain grove theory didn't apply? | ||
| Glenn |
Hi Jon, Yes I'll be real interested your solution/s too. So far for me it has been too high a rear pre-load. I am also going to readjust my head bearings using the good suggestions from Tootal. Regarding "rain grooves" or other road irregularities, in one case for me it was sand in the middle of a turn that started my shake. I want to solve this so I'm not restrained with how I make turns, thinking that I may get into a head shake. | ||
| Swimmonkey |
OKC99 - I must have neglected to address your question. I did state that the pavement was smooth, clean. It does not have any rain grooves. Thanks! | ||
| Swimmonkey |
Fork oil changed. Steering head bearings torqued. Still some head shake. I'm increasing my rebound dampening a bit and will give it a another try. I had my mechanic give the bike a complete going over. Everything looks good to him. Could it be the tires? Perhaps! | ||
| Swimmonkey |
Update on the head shake - It is minimized. I think I do need tires but the fork oil swap out did indeed seem to help. I also backed off on the preload on the rear (four clicks) and upped the rebound by about half a turn. I took a couple high-speed sweepers this morning and the old Ully has definitely settled down! I still love it! | ||
| Hmartin |
On every bike I've ever owned, handling issues cleared up with new shoes (tires). | ||
| Glenn |
Hi Jon, This is good news! It seems like too much preload in the back is consistent with my problem. I'm going to reset the head bearings as Tootal suggested and up my rebound damping too. Thanks! |
