Wobble

[Crossrodes]

Recently I've done a bunch of work on my '79 R65.  Front Tire change, repack front wheel bearings, remove and inspect forks, new fork oil, remove and inspect steering head and repack bearings.  Where torques specs are documented in my manual I have torqued things down to spec.

Now that the bike is back on the road I'm getting a wobble that starts around 105 kph and gets worse the faster I go.  It seems like the wobble will disappear if I pull in the clutch (but that may happen because the bike slows down when I do that).  A friend was following me today and he thought it was the front end that was wobbling (I'm not sure).  

I have checked the clearances on the swing arm and they are the same on both sides.  One possibility is that my steering head is not adjusted properly but from what I have read I should be real close on that one.  I have received differing opinions as to whether I should tighten or loosen the steering head.

Any suggestions?

Mike

[Bob_Roller]

Was the front tire/wheel balanced after replacing the front tire?

Is the front tire seated on the rim properly, there is a 'guide line' on the sidewall right next to the rim, see if the same amount is visible all around the entire circumfrence.

[Rob Valdez 79 R65]

You are certain you got the wheel bearing assembly back in good order?  No free play when you grab the wheel at 3 & 9 o'clock and pull back & forth, and repeat at 12 and 6 o'clock?

[Crossrodes]

The front wheel was balanced (by me).  If it comes down to it I will recheck the balancing.  The tire is seated properly and the line is an equal distance from the rim all the way around.

I haven't checked for free play (thought if I torqued everything it should be ok) but I'll check that tomorrow.

Thanks for your ideas.

Mike

[montmil]

I sure do not wish to generate more work for you, X-roads, but have you inspected, serviced, replaced or done the "grab n' wiggle" test on the rear wheel?

When I did a pre-buy test ride on my 1981 R65, I thought I must have surely forgotten how to ride! The bike wobbled so that I felt as if I was going to fall over!

Quick check determined the rear wheel bearings were loose. Sale price went down. New bearings, races and a full inspection plus new lube cured the wobble. I'll skip the pre-load DIY ritual. The bike's now a straight line goer!

Easy to check. Give it a tweak and report back. Good luck.   Monte

[Crossrodes]

Thanks Montmil.  I'll let you know how that goes.  I did a "tweak" of the front wheel last night and it seems nice and snug.  I plan on doing somwork on the rear anyway.

[Danie]

If you can't trace the cause of the problem, it might be worthwhile having a look at the driveshaft. The universal joint could be on its way out.

When I had to replace mine a while ago, it actually caused a vibration - not a wobble.

Regards

Danie

[Crossrodes]

Thanks Danie.  If I don't find it elsewhere I'll check out the U joint.  I have plans to do a complete check/lube ofthe back end next.

[Tampa_Bob]

I hope you get your issues worked out and back on the road soon.  Have you considered using Dyna Beads for balancing the tires?  I've only read about the product and was considering using it, but I was looking for some advice.  Most reviews seem to indicate it works.  Does anyone have any experience with the product?

Thanks, Bob

[Crossrodes]

Bob I've head lots about Dyna Beads too.  there seem to be quite a few people on the Goldwing boards that use them.  The all have good things to say about them.  For me I have my own balancer and weights and I'll continue with that for now.

[Crossrodes]

A Progress Report:

Today I decided to play with the adjustment on the steering head so I removed the Givi windshield that I installed this year and backed off on the steering head adjustment until I had some free play in the front end.   Then I tighten it up a tad.  I left the shield off and want out for a test ride.  Everything seemed to be much better.  I came home and loosened it off a bit more.  It seemed a little better on the road test (very subjective...130 kph with no wobble).  At this point I decided that if I loosened it up much more I would have free play in the steering head so I left the adjustment where it was and replaced the windshield...this is where it gets interesting.

I did one more road test and as I approached 110 I thought I noticed some wobble (sometimes hard to tell around here as the logging trucks put some major grooves in the highway).  Then as I went around a curve (and the wind direction changed) I got some serious wobble.  I'm now thinking that the windshield is causing my problem.  

So I've removed the windshield and tomorrow I'll give it another test without the windshield and see how that goes.

I've done some searching on the Internet and I found one guy who swears that bar mounted windshields cause wobbles on BMW's.  Has anyone ever heard of this or experienced it?

Mike  

[beemer]

Yes!a mate of mine put a shield he bought from a BMW agent on his R65 and found it caused bad wobble,he has since removed it,i will ask him what's his thoughts are about it,funny enough,he also put's these beads in his tyres for balancing,only he used rice!!!small grain type!,i must ask him about that too!J.

[Rob Valdez 79 R65]

I find it odd that there are people here (John in SC, for one) that have the largest windshield available mounted to their handlebars, and a top-box on the back, but they (he) never has problems with wobble.

John is busy with his wife recovering from surgery right now, so he may not chime in right away.

[donbmw]

I had installed a handlebar mount shield on my 82 R65 when I first bought it. I had this on my 79 CX500 first and had over 35000 miles using it on Honda. I never had any problems with handling on the Honda or my R65. I think I put around 3000 miles on the R65 before I installed the Don Vesco Rapid Transit Full Fairing that is still on. I installed a Wixon handlebar fairing on the Kaw 500 without any handling problems also and this was the bike a first and I made my own mount for this bike. A handlebar mount windshield may cause some handle problems but most of the cause will be steering head bearings, Wheel bearings and swingarm bearings.  And what is mounted on the rear of the bike weither it is fix or load when traveling.

Don

[Crossrodes]

If you go to any of the 1800 Goldwing boards you will find  a SIGNIFICANT number of 1800 owners that complain of wobble.  Some of these are caused by tire problems most are not.  Many of these bikes wobble right out of the crate and the most consistent way of fixing the problem seems to be to change the steering head bearings from ball bearings to tapered roller bearings (All Balls Bearings).

In my case I have an 06 1800 and with 85,000 kms on the clock.  I have owned this bike since new.  I am on my 3rd set of tires and have never had a wobble problem.  A friend of mine with the identical bike which he purchased three months after me has the problem.

IMO some bikes are prone to wobble (possibly because of the steering geometry) and it might just take a slight difference in the setup...be it tires, windshield, bearing preload or WHY to bring it on.  Maybe the R65 is one of the bikes that are prone to wobble.  I don't know.  All I know is that I've got a problem and I am trying to solve it.