Boatmark wrote:
I was thinking in the near future of flushing and changing out my fork oil. I would think this would be a good time to change out the neck bearings to the tapered type. Am I correct? Is this hard to do? Any links, etc?
The bike came from the factory with tapered bearings in the neck. At least mine did.

With the forks off you can lower the neck enough to see the bottom bearing, clean it and pack it. The top one is even easier.

Once lowered enough to expose the bottom bearing and if it looks okay you can hold things in place with a long bolt through the lock tangs while you clean and repack it.

Don't crush the rubber washer. It provides the proper spacing so the top tree mounts correctly against the upper tins.

Without the rubber spacer, the steering head lock does not work correctly either.

jd750ace wrote:
Without the rubber spacer, the steering head lock does not work correctly either. JD and you know this how

Mine don't work right at the moment.

Here is the issue I have, the front end "detents" when straight ahead, kind of "locks" there and takes a little effort to push right or left. There is no play when you try to rock the forks fore and aft, but the front end does flop over pretty easily.

Mine was the same way. Flopped side to side, banged against the stops, but I couldn't detect any slop, trying to rock the fork sliders. I 1st retorqued the bearings. Helped for awhile. It didn't last. Next, replaced the bearings. Life is good, Note: the 1st time, I went by the book, using the rubber washer & their torque specs. The symptoms quickly returned. I found the jam nut & bearing pre-load nuts had backed off I talked w/ my Yamaha mechanic about this. He rides a Roadstar & has wrenched his whole life.( I trust the man) He told me how to re-assemble the steering head w/o the rubber washer & why. I've talked w/ factory trained HD mechanics about this also. All said basicly, hand tighten the preload nut until the fork will barely turn.Then apply lock-tite & tighten the jam nut. Sometimes the tangs on the washer line up, sometimes they dont. I've had no problems with the locking pin aligning with the hole in the upper triple clamp. As far as loose tins, I just bend the tabs up alittle if needed.
The purpose of a jam nut is to mechanicaly "lock" the 2 nuts on a threaded shaft. With the little to no compression required for the rubber washer, the only thing that is keeping the pre-load nut from backing off is, THE PRE-LOAD NUT While others may disagree with my method, I've ridden over 2000mi in the last 2 weeks. I just checked my fork yesterday, life is good

Glad your steering lock works. Couldn't get mine back in shape, but my nuts are tight!

I can't imagine how the top nut could have backed off. The nut that holds the top tree on tightens the tree against that nut so that it can't move. With the bottom nut tightened to 13 ft lbs and the locking tangs engaging both nuts mine has never moved.

From what I can see, it looks like the top tree clamp has enough room under the casting for the nut to be able to back off. I have to agree with Ironman on this, especially since I had to go back into mine and re-tighten it when I followed the book the first time

I know several people that have never had a problem, but I had to adjust mine twice in 6 months, and both times I could feel the front getting heavier and developed a weave. Both times I found that the steering stem was loose. Maybe my bearings did not get seated well from the factory. I don't know, But it's good now.