I am intimately familiar with the neck bearings in my scoot as I replaced them this week end. More on that later. The story begins when I put a new front tire on about 11,000 miles ago. I noticed that it was kind of twitchy. I wrote this off to the new tire, what else could it be I just serviced my neck bearings about 2,000 miles before this. Well I can tell you it was not the tire it was the neck bearings. She was rock solid this weekend even in high wind. The neck bearings did not look bad, but they obviously had some play in them. When you are adding a little preload they mean a little. The bearings are torqued to 37 pounds to seat them and then the nut is backed off to approximately 4 pounds. That is about finger tight. I played with mine moving it about 2 degrees at a time until I got it right where it just falls to lock.

Thanks for the input Cruiserbob. I rode mine back to work at lunch and with my wife not on it or the forty or so pounds in the t-bag, it still does the head wobble when decel from 35-40. I have always felt my bike was very unstable in cross winds, at higher speeds or when passing larger trucks but just wrote that off as the way it is. I'm hoping this issue fixes or minimizes that problem as well.

I had the front end wobble thing happening and thought it was because there were no weights on the front wheel and it was out of balance. WRONG!!

I tightened up the bearings and low and behold the wobble is gone.

Check your neck

Not to say it isn't the neck bearings, but I had the same thing straight out of the box when I got mine with 1 mile on her. Never got a definite answer as to why.

However, when I replaced my front tire, it was gone. No adjustments to the bike whatsoever, just the tire replacement. Straight and true since. No wobble at all. Not trying to say that's your issue, just letting you know my experience with it.

Ratl.

Hi Ratl,was it by any chance a dunlop 404 front tire you removed that caused the wobbles on your bike?

I ask that because i have new dunolps on my bike and front has the wobbles,sometimes hardly noticeable at all & others times down right spooky as heck depending on type pavement.

Have approx 500 miles on the new Dunlops so they are plenty scuffed up/broken in.

What tire including mfg fixed the front end wobbles for you?

Thanks..Scott

My bike has the original tires with less 3K miles. The local Yamaha dealer will adjust the bearings and they feel that will cure the problem. I've had this same thing with an older Yamaha XS750 years ago and when I replaced the tire the wobble went away.

Thanks again for everyone's input!!

scottw wrote:
Hi Ratl,was it by any chance a dunlop 404 front tire you removed that caused the wobbles on your bike?

I ask that because i have new dunolps on my bike and front has the wobbles,sometimes hardly noticeable at all & others times down right spooky as heck depending on type pavement.

Have approx 500 miles on the new Dunlops so they are plenty scuffed up/broken in.

What tire including mfg fixed the front end wobbles for you?

Thanks..Scott

I believe I had Dunlops on her when I got it, however, I replaced it with a Dunlop Cruismax tire.

My thinking is that the dealer never balanced the orignal tire right or it was somehow defective. I got about 14,500 out of the first one. No issues with this one so far. It has been smooth and straight since day one.

If I ever have the wobble issue again, I plan to get dyna beads and try that. I really believe that would solve it. Not to say that you shouldn't check your neck bearings or how tight it is, those are still important service issues. I don't think that that in itself would cause the wobble, just allow it to be felt more.

My .02.
Ratl.

Hi Ratl,thanks for the reply/info.

My bike just tunred 5kmiles,i had it up on jack today and pulled every whichway in the fork tubes and no slop at all found anywhere,wheel bearing seemd ok too.

Also,the fork doesnt fall to lock real fast either like would be the case with not enough preload on neck bearings so i am hoping the tire will do the trick in my case.

I has a coupe people here not inc you tell me that when tey dumped the dunlop from the front and installed a new diff type tire the twitchy/unstalbe feeling was gone which i hope will be the case with me .

My bike is so twitchy even my wife noticed it ans she doesne ever notice anything unless it hit here over the head so that should give you an idea of just how bad my bikes twitchness is that she's seeing & felling it from the back seat.

I was out on the bike today and it was twichy as heck and the more windy it got the worse it is but i have had people here in RSC tell their R*'s are stable on the raod at all speeds in wind with same stock windsreen as on my silverado so i guess its not the windscreen either.

I removed the front wheel tonight that has the new dunlop 404 on it with apprx 500miles and will be installing a new Bridgestone believe it's 703 front tire to see how that does.

If that doesn't fix it then even thought i could not find any slop in front fork/neck beraings when checked that again only have 5k miles on them i will still tighetn up the preload a smidge to see if that helps at that point.

But i have to get this fixed becuase it's pretty bad and kinda spooy at times,you get the feeling you dont know where its going to end up next,almost feels like the frontend is on black ice/icey pavement.

Scot

Scotw, sounds like our issues are very similar. I have never felt like my roadstar was stable on the road and it has gotten worse with miles. It's almost like it has a mind of it's own at times and hard to track a straight line. My steering head bearings don't feel loose either but when on the jack it will go from center to lock with no effort at all.

Keep me posted on what you find out. I would hate to think I need to change a front tire with less than 3K miles to correct this problem.

bstephens600,will do.

Just dropped of wheel and new tire at shop this am and should have it back by Sat AM btu supposed to rain.

But Sunday is not supposed to rain so maybe i will get a chance to try the bike out with the new tire then.

wtih the tire on or off the fork with front end raised the fork will slide back to lock by its self but not real fast like its loose on preload.

I pulled in all directions on that fork and no play ay all with 5k miles and wheel bearings seemed tight when ni pulled on the wheel too.

But i asked the shop to chekc out the front wheel bearings while they were at it anyways since they had the wheel off.

You never know,even though only 5k miles it could have a defective bearing bearing i didnt pick up on which i would not want to miss and end up chasing my tail on this thing.

But oif it still has the shakes post new tire i am going to 1st just for ha ha's removee the wind screen which takes 5 mins to see if that does anything.

Because i have noticed the when its windy that wobbly feeling is worse ,i will also look into what it takes to give the fork/steering bearing a little tweak tighter on preload to see what that does too.

I rode my other bike last wk end i bought new which is a 77 kawasaki kz1000 which also has a windscreen and its solid as a rock even in wind.

I jacked that up to see preload on its fork bearings and its very free,gos very fast from cent falling over the full lock,much faster/more free then my R* and the kawi has original fork bearings with just under 28k miles.

And includes the abuse of many yrs ago when i was younger doing more than an occassional wheelie slamming the front back down at times,thank goodnees i made it thur those yrs doing stupid things on that bike/LOL!!!!!.

But the kids today are maniakas/stupidly fearless,i would drop the wheelie at approx 40mph,these guys today are crazy. I had had a guy pass me like i was standing still while in wheelies when i was crusing at 65mph and he kept the wheelie going thru a moderate/not sharp corner too. I was afraid to watch it because i thought he would loose it in the corner and kill himself but he made it no proeblem.

BYT,i have been riding bikes for over 40yrs and have been riding on the street every season since 1972 so i have riden a ton of miles on many different bikes over the yrs as the kawai 1000 is by far not the only street bike i have owned. But this wobble thing/unstable front end on my 06 R* is the 1st time i have had an issue like this that actually spooked me/scared me pretty good a coupple times like when i enrterd a corner in 1 lane and was forced over the a 2nd lane to the left due to that isssue with wife on back of bike,thats has to be fixed or bike will be going by by,thats something i willnot tollerate no matter how good that bike is running.

Scott

Have a good one...Scott