Wobble

Shredder · Jun 5, 2016

Put prolly 200 miles on my new tires. Still have the wobble. Switched bike with the beekeeper the other say and man does his bike feel tight compared to mine. Wish i knew what the difference was. I guess ill try progressive fork springs next unless someone had some more input on this.

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sdt354 · Jun 6, 2016

Shredder said:
Work my way up to what? Maybe frame braces or solid motor mounts?

None of that stuff matters until you fix the wobble. Head bearings are first to check, Tires, & swing-arm. Wheel bearings.Frame connections too. I don't want anyone to get hurt because they tested out something else at 135 mph. If Progressive springs fixed a wobble, it isn't the kind of tank slapper I'm talking about.

caseyjones955 · Jun 6, 2016

Mine hasnt wiggled once since the progressives went in but I also found the fork brace had an ear broken off in the rear, didnt notice it until teardown. I got an OEM replacement off ebay and put everything together. I was right on the edge with Seans bounce test so I snugged it up a minute amount. The improvement is night/day, and my tires are cupped a bit, havnt changed those yet. I suspect I didnt need to mess with the head bearings either but for sure that fork brace might be worth a look.

Lotsokids · Jun 6, 2016

caseyjones955 said:
Mine hasnt wiggled once since the progressives went in but I also found the fork brace had an ear broken off in the rear, didnt notice it until teardown. I got an OEM replacement off ebay and put everything together. I was right on the edge with Seans bounce test so I snugged it up a minute amount. The improvement is night/day, and my tires are cupped a bit, havnt changed those yet. I suspect I didnt need to mess with the head bearings either but for sure that fork brace might be worth a look.

I'm kind of jealous. I've done all this, and the wobble almost kicked me off a couple hours ago.

- Progressive springs installed
- MASSIVE, thick aftermarket steel fork brace
- New rear tire.
- New steering head bearings and races

I just replaced the upper AND lower steering head bearings AND races on Saturday. Well, test ride accomplished, but bad results. The wobble was still present, so I hoisted the bike again and did the "bump" adjustment since I have no means to torque it. As per the instructions, after a little tightening, the bars hit the stops but did not bounce back. Another test ride. HORRIBLE. SEVERE wobble almost kicked me off. A little voice in my head told me to record it on the GoPro, but unfortunately I didn't.

Returned and did another adjustment. This time it's pretty tight. I'm expecting a low-speed weave now. It's getting late, and I have the "race" exhaust installed and I don't want to bother the neighbors.

Plus, my son was playing basketball near my bike and broke off my rear turn signal with the ball. So had to replace the rear signals. *Sigh*

I'll try it again tomorrow. :confused2:

I've owned (2) 1985 V-Max bikes before my current one. Both of them were completely stable. Big difference with my 1999. This one is [sometimes] like a bucking bronco in hard accelleration. :bang head:

Miles Long · Jun 6, 2016

Lotsokids said:
I'm kind of jealous. I've done all this, and the wobble almost kicked me off a couple hours ago.

- Progressive springs installed
- MASSIVE, thick aftermarket steel fork brace
- New rear tire.
- New steering head bearings and races

I just replaced the upper AND lower steering head bearings AND races on Saturday. Well, test ride accomplished, but bad results. The wobble was still present, so I hoisted the bike again and did the "bump" adjustment since I have no means to torque it. As per the instructions, after a little tightening, the bars hit the stops but did not bounce back. Another test ride. HORRIBLE. SEVERE wobble almost kicked me off. A little voice in my head told me to record it on the GoPro, but unfortunately I didn't.

Returned and did another adjustment. This time it's pretty tight. I'm expecting a low-speed weave now. It's getting late, and I have the "race" exhaust installed and I don't want to bother the neighbors.

Plus, my son was playing basketball near my bike and broke off my rear turn signal with the ball. So had to replace the rear signals. *Sigh*

I'll try it again tomorrow. :confused2:

I've owned (2) 1985 V-Max bikes before my current one. Both of them were completely stable. Big difference with my 1999. This one is [sometimes] like a bucking bronco in hard accelleration. :bang head:

A video would be great, in particular one showing the speedo, and the shaking of the front end , starting at ? speed, and dissipating at ? speed.
In my case, the shaking occurred at 35-60 kph, and once resulted in a tank slapper, which you seem to describe. This condition was repeatable, any time I tried accelerating very slowly thru this speed range.
This condition could NOT be described as a low or high speed wobble - it's a different animal completely.
One thing you could do, something easy -
Take off that massive fork brace, and replace with the OEM. At the same time, relieve the stresses and let the forks align, as described in post #34.
This may sound counter-intuitive, but if a resonant condition is causing the shaking, sometimes too much stiffness can be a bad thing.
Won't hurt to try.
Cheers!

Traumahawk · Jun 6, 2016

Question....have you ever checked the swing arm bearings?

Shredder · Jun 6, 2016

Lotsokids said:
I'm kind of jealous. I've done all this, and the wobble almost kicked me off a couple hours ago.

- Progressive springs installed
- MASSIVE, thick aftermarket steel fork brace
- New rear tire.
- New steering head bearings and races

I just replaced the upper AND lower steering head bearings AND races on Saturday. Well, test ride accomplished, but bad results. The wobble was still present, so I hoisted the bike again and did the "bump" adjustment since I have no means to torque it. As per the instructions, after a little tightening, the bars hit the stops but did not bounce back. Another test ride. HORRIBLE. SEVERE wobble almost kicked me off. A little voice in my head told me to record it on the GoPro, but unfortunately I didn't.

Returned and did another adjustment. This time it's pretty tight. I'm expecting a low-speed weave now. It's getting late, and I have the "race" exhaust installed and I don't want to bother the neighbors.

Plus, my son was playing basketball near my bike and broke off my rear turn signal with the ball. So had to replace the rear signals. *Sigh*

I'll try it again tomorrow. :confused2:

I've owned (2) 1985 V-Max bikes before my current one. Both of them were completely stable. Big difference with my 1999. This one is [sometimes] like a bucking bronco in hard accelleration. :bang head:

Well that sucks. I just ordered bearings a races hoping i was gonna fix mine. Gonna do it anyways. Maybe itll fix mine. Maybe not but atleast i can check that off my list.

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blaxmax · Jun 6, 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW-CmACI5xQ

Shredder · Jun 6, 2016

blaxmax said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW-CmACI5xQ

Thats the first thing i ever did to mine.

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Lotsokids · Jun 7, 2016

Traumahawk said:
Question....have you ever checked the swing arm bearings?

Actually, no. Not yet. You may be on to something there. I did a physical "shakedown" with my hands on the wheels and there is no play.

I'll check / change those swingarm bearings at my earliest opportunity.

It sucks living in Hungary... I need to check Ebay UK for parts and shipping to Hungary, then wait 3 weeks for the parts to arrive.

After tightening the head again (third time) I rode it to work today. But no low-speed weave as I expected. I didn't really get on it as I didn't want to wake the whole town up this morning (my bike is VERY loud).

A couple things are consistent with my wobble:

1. When it occurs, it is ALWAYS under very hard acceleration above about 60 MPH on uneven or bumpy roads. I firmly believe there is a tracking issue on my bike.

2. It never happens at steady speed on smooth roads. Never happened at the drag track (thankfully).

Traumahawk · Jun 7, 2016

The reason why I asked, I was recently at Eureka Springs going thru the mountains, etc, and someone behind me said that they could physically see the swing arm moving when I got leaned into a turn.

I never knew that there were issues until then. I had set the sag, and it was allowing me to go into the corners faster, exposing other issues.

Lotsokids · Jun 7, 2016

Looking up the swingarm bearings now.

I hit it kind of hard a couple times in known "wobble" areas on my way home from work today. I tightened the head nuts a little more (the bars don't even fall to the stops now - I need to manually move the bars to both stops during the "bounce" method). There was a very slight wobble present, but not near the severity it used to be. But it was never consistent. Some days it would try to kick me off, other days it was fine.

Slight wobble occurred on hard acceleration on a slightly bumpy road right at 140 Km/H.

Lotsokids · Jun 9, 2016

Specs95t said:
Left bolt (with the lock tabs) gets torqued to spec first - 72 ft. lb.
Right allen bolt gets torqued next (4.3 ft. lb - yes low torque #).
Right nut gets torqued last - 72 ft. lb.

Right allen bolt is what controls the amount of force put on the swing arm bearings.

I followed these procedures, but my torque wrench's lowest setting is 10 ft-lbs.
So at the second step, the torque was so light that I didn't feel my torque wrench break. So I accidentally went to about 15 or 20, then I heard a "pop" which scared me. It sounded like I broke something internally. I backed it off and torqued it to 10, repeating this process 3 times to make sure. Torqued the jamb nut, and rode the bike. Seems everything is fine. No odd sounds, no shifting of suspension parts. Cranked out a hard acceleration to over 100 MPH and everything was straight and fine.

I'll be taking another ride today to Budapest, and there are 3 known areas where my bike wobbles. Won't be back until late tonight, but I'll give a report.

Lotsokids · Jun 9, 2016

Lotsokids said:
I'll be taking another ride today to Budapest, and there are 3 known areas where my bike wobbles. Won't be back until late tonight, but I'll give a report.

So the 4+ hour ride today was uneventful.

Maybe we fixed this wobble issue. I'll give it some time and let y'all know sometime later if we have a good fix.

Notes:

1. The length of road where I could generate a severe wobble was UNDER CONSTRUCTION.
So when I fixed my bike, they decided to fix the road. Great timing. :confused2:

2. A Honda [something] car flew past me on the M1 Highway. I caught up and the challenge started. Because the V-Max is QUICK but not FAST, I had a hard time catching him. We went into a slight turn and I felt a little wobble at 180+ Km/H (111 MPH). The wobble was not severe, and very controllable. But it made me very uncomfortable, so I backed off.

jfeagins · Jun 9, 2016

If you had a wobble at 111mph, then the cause of your wobble still exists. Perhaps you've bandaided it enough to suit yourself as far as controlling it though? Everyone has a different threshold as to what works for them. Me - I'd have to know what was really causing the wobble, and fix that specifically....but that is just me, I guess.

Lotsokids · Jun 10, 2016

jfeagins said:
Everyone has a different threshold as to what works for them. Me - I'd have to know what was really causing the wobble, and fix that specifically....but that is just me, I guess.

There's my problem. I've changed literally everything that would have anything to do with instability. I've got nothing left.

adambweird · Jun 10, 2016

Not necessarily true, theres still a braced swingarm, swingarm bearing replacement, gusseting the frame in the box around the swingarm pivots and replacing the rear shocks that could be done yet, lol. And solid motor mounts and frame braces too, cant forget those, lol.

jfeagins · Jun 10, 2016

Change tires again - and add a professional spin balance job. My opinion is your problem will either go away completely, or it's characteristics will change slightly - due to differences in where your new tires are not completely perfect as compared to where your current tires aren't completely perfect. Yes, even new tires can have issues. (radials seem to have far fewer problems in this regard)

...just sayin', and realizing most won't believe it can be exactly that simple...but I sometimes have to do it to hear my own head rattle....

Traumahawk · Jun 10, 2016

jfeagins said:
...just sayin', and realizing most won't believe it can be exactly that simple...but I sometimes have to do it to hear my own head rattle....

Dont worry, we still love you Jim.....er Jeff.....er Jeremy......what EVER your name is...:biglaugh:

Shredder · Jun 13, 2016

Well today i went go go change my steering head bearigs and races. Got it apart and they looked damn near brand new. The top race looked like it wsnt sitting down all the way so i tapped the one side down. I think they were changed not too long before i got the bike. Regreased everything. Put everything back together. Did a bounce test. Adjusted and went for a ride. Straight as an arrow up to 120. Not sure what i did but i think i may have fixed mine.

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Wobble

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