How many HAVE NOT een able to stop head shake ?

[kzz1king]

Snugged er down a bit tonight and it is still there. Took the tank and such back off and tightened up a bit more. Do not want to overdo it. Steering is still free but will not drop to the stops on its own now. Have not test rode it yet. Anyone not able to get the headshake out?
Wayne

[Outback_Jon]

My bike recently developed a severe head shake due to the front wheel bearings destroying themselves.  If you haven't checked them lately, you might want to.

This is what I found:   

[Furbo]

Been putting up with it since they doscontinued the Pilot GT's. !@#$@#$@#$%@

When the Avons are new, it goes away, but returns after a 1000 miles or so.  There's a plan on the site from George Young - the moderator for a steering damper - which the bike needs frankly. 

[rwulf]

Head shake can also start with the swing arm. Check that there is no play at the rear end of your bike.
I have also seen head shake caused by wheel alignment. Both front wheel and rear wheel need to be
in line with each other and rear needs to be pointed down the center line of the bike. You can use a
string to check alignment. One more and harder to deal with is tilt of the rear wheel. If the bike has
ever been hit or down hard the swing arm can get bent.
There is a company in Atlanta that uses lasers to check all these alignment issues.

[Toxz Qwaste]

The only time that I got headshake was after my Dunlop D205 became cupped towards the end of it's life. I replaced it with an Avon AV45 and it is getting close to replacement but I have no headshake with it so far. My ride has 24k on the clock and I haven't had any issues with the steering head.   

[jworth]

I'm not going to give any information here as I don't really want to pick a fight.  I'll just say that there is a tremendous amount of misinformation out there about head shake and a lot of snake oil remedies.  People seem to be just so certain of what they know there's no changing their minds.  I would just say do a lot or reading and use some really critical thinking.  Good luck.

[George R. Young]

wobble
http://web.ncf.ca/ag136/frontWheelWobble.htm

steering damper
http://web.ncf.ca/ag136/steeringDamper.htm

[Daytona_Mike]

Snugged er down a bit tonight and it is still there. Took the tank and such back off and tightened up a bit more. Do not want to overdo it. Steering is still free but will not drop to the stops on its own now. Have not test rode it yet. Anyone not able to get the headshake out?
Wayne

Wayne, yes me. I did the same as you did. I  re-greased and snugged and snugged and tightened some more and then replaced the bearings and  then repeated the snugging and tightening.
Then I took the bike to Tech Day and the Nationals. I had it WAY WAY too loose. It has to be cranked down really really hard until it starts to bind up. If It can 'FALL' to the side  it is too loose. I took it for a ride and 'BAM!!' it was fixed and then a few months later it had to be tightened again and then after another 6 months again. I assume the new bearings were settling in. Now it is about once a year. I have a spare set of bearings to go in soon. They wear out rather quickly because they are too small and under rated for the size and weight of our bike.

[George R. Young]

. . . They wear out rather quickly because they are too small and under rated for the size and weight of our bike.

I have the original head bearings from 2001, but I've never over-tightened them to compensate for wobble. I set them to the factory recommendation, no play, no friction.

When you torque them enough to generate damping friction, the rollers are deforming. Perhaps that's why yours wear out so often.

[Daytona_Mike]

You may be correct George. In 103k miles I have only replaced them once. I just rebuilt the front end and at the same time inspected  re-greased the stem bearings. It has been about 50k miles and these are still looking good. No ridges on the races. I have an extra set of stem  bearings  and was expecting to have to install new ones. The original bearings I had replaced not because it was too tight but because they were too loose for too long and the pounding put grooves in the races.
One  time I did tighten them up and  I felt that creepy weird feeling where the bike wants to steer  its self.
It is that same feeling you get when you cross a bridge with metal grating and the bike wanders left and right on its own. I left it for a couple of days and it settled in and that issue went away. That is a sure sign of too tight.

[qman]

my 2 cents.
I rebuilt the engine a year and a half ago, while it was out I did fork seals and head bearings. Thought I had them snugged up just fine. After a few thousand miles I noticed a slight wobble if I took my hands off around 50mph. Not bad mind you but I did feel it. This year I took a trip around lake Superior and I noticed near the end that it was getting worse. It's now been 8000 mi since I changed them so I re adjusted them and voila! I can ride hands free all day if I wanted to.
  Make sure you loosen the upper fork pinch clamp bolts as well as the handlebar pinch bolts. lift the front wheel off the ground. Loosen the top nut, tighten the castle nut (I used a drift and hammer carefully) I turned it until I just barely felt a discernable difference. To check I would push the handle bar briskly to it's stop and see if it bounced back a bit. Then I took a mallet and gave the top of the tree a few whacks to make sure it settled before I tightened the top nut and the pinch bolts. BIG DIFFERENCE! Very happy now.
HTH

[Rick Hall]

Background:
180k miles on Sam. I have run most every type/brand of tire on her, with the exception of EBWT's. Quite often mis-matched sets (eg: Dunlop rear, Metzler front), though all radials. In every case, I run sidewall pressure front/back (42PSI)

At about 40k on the odo, I futzed with stem bearing preload to eliminate headshake. Mostly worked fine, but eventually the races became dented. Not a big deal, the bearings were still doing their job, but it became near impossible to keep Sam going in a straight line... She weaved ever so slightly (dented race or roller).

Replaced both stem bearings at about the 60k mile mark. I torqued the castle nut down finger tight and left it that way. To this day! I suspect the stem is currently quite loose, but I still get around the corners in fine form.

On some tire combos (I can't remember which), I get a decel head shake from about 45MPH to around 20 MPH. Sometimes But only if I take both hands off the bar. If my hand is on the bar, nothing. And it can be just my index finger.

YMMV, watch your fat intake, floss after every meal...

Rick

[mdr]

Too tight on the head bearings can cause what might be mistaken for 'head shake'.  What 's actually happening is the natural slight 'wobble' the bars do while rolling over the pavement gets restricted.  Since it's gotta do it to stay upright, and moving bikes like to stay upright, the rear tries to do it instead.  On rain grooves, it's an EVIL feeling.

"Easiest" way to adjust the bearing is to pull everything off the bars - clutch, brakes, wiring, everything!  Tighten the bearing until the bars start to bind a little and back off until it will just flop to the side.  OK, not so easy

My way is to get it close - that is you can't feel a clunk when you 'drop' the front end while it's on the center stand.  (Press down on the rear, then let it go for the front to hit)  Go right over some speed bumps, the end of the driveway, etc and feel for a 'clunk'.  If you feel one, tighten another 1/8 turn.  Repeat.  The downside is it takes more times, but it doesn't take long each time.  Plus is it's 'just right' at the end.

Make sure the fork tube clamps and front wheel are properly torqued too.  I've felt them be a little loose and make a clunk feeling too.

Dan Bergman does it another way, but I've forgotten it (CRS).  It's probably in the history here or over on the COG forums.

Don't forget about tire pressures, preload, etc.  Over inflated tires will feel 'sharper' or 'firmer' and can contribute.  Try reducing the pressure 1 PSI and see how it feels.  I have an about 2PSI 'sweet spot', and I can feel the difference between the top and bottom of the range (38-40PSI - your gauge may vary).

I finally got the last remnant of on throttle shake out of mine by removing a little front preload and adding a little to the rear.  By geometry it should make it worse, but I think it added a little weight up front and helped stabilize it. 

Some have said torquing or replacing bad or properly shimming the engine mounts and bolts helped.  Since the engine is clamped into the frame, providing rigidity, messed up mounts can cause handling problems too.

[Mike G]

When I bought my 2002 the PO had the steering head bearings so tight I had to use channel locks and serious grunt to loosen up the nut.  The bearings were so tight the bike had a high speed weave.  Adjusting them got rid of the weave but it would wobble between 40-50 mph until I replaced the D205 with a BT023.  So it can be gotten rid of at the expense of bearing life and handling(it handled like a pig)

Mike G