That darn wobble

Hey Guys,

I wanted to bring this up here being this board is much more open minded than others.

I know this topic has been beat to death but I just cant accept that this wobbe is the "nature" of the beast. I pose this question. ( I have an 06 R) Did you ever take a good look at your tire from the back of your x? Is it me, or is that sucker off center slightly to the left, about 1/4- 3/8 of inch? Maybe an optical illusion, maybe im just a nut case????

Anyway, if this is the case, wouldn't this offset the balance of the bike causing it to ever so slightly want to turn right, thus we ever so slighly counter steer to offset this, and therefore causing excessive tire wear on the left side of the front tire ( long winded huh?) and maybe cause a wobble?

Check out Dinos pics in this thread:
https://mcdarksiders.forumotion.com/vtx-1300-tech-f11/pics-of-your-darkside-wideside-t599.htm

Alot of bike wera uneven, on the left, my use to. Some things you can do, Put progressive springs in and make sure you have the right amount of oil in, when you change I alway recomend pulling the forks and dumping them up side down and takeing a good look at the oil and whats in the oil, mine had metal fileings in them from the bad bushing, I would have never found if I would have used the sucktion devise. The other is get rid of the Duncrap tire, make sure you have the righ amount of air, at least 38, and loosen pinch bolt and bolt on one side of the axle and bounce the front up and down. But probley the most inportant thing to do is, get ride of those $hit head bearrings, they are junk, and the bearring can cause bad tire wear, alot of guys will disagree but just stop and think about it for a min. Its were the triple trees are hook to the frame and the forks are connected to the trees and the tire is connected to the forks.

+1 on what wayne said!


...................bobby

.

yep, when I took to dealer and installed rear tire general graber I saw that rear fender it's a slightly skewed to the left.
I have never saw that before.
Also have read that some users have had problems switching to 200 and have same issue and they solved putting some spacers on the left side inside rail or somehow like this, I don't know for sure.
I will also take a better look if I can correct this on my own.

Did you take a look at your rear fender and is it also skewed to one side??
Or is it just on my bike??

Ok, I know this is a hot topic, almost as bad as car tires on that other board, but I thought I'd just add my personal observations and how I found my problem with the infamous 1300 Wheel Wobble...
Plus I'd like to see what people think, and if there is one thing about this site - its that people are far more open minded and actually think.

My Bike is a 2006 VTX1300s bought new in the middle January 2006, including a Memphis Shades 21" windshield, a set of LeatherLyke saddle bags and a Hondaline deluxe sissy bar and rack.
By the end of the fist season, which happed in early September (we moved back to AK) I had about 12,000 mile on her. A tad over 1500 miles a month for what amounted to 8 months. For the first 6 months or so the bike was pretty much flawless, but by the end of the season the tires were getting thin and I was starting to notice that wobble.
During that first 6 months I never really a noticed a wobble at all, but by the time I hit 10,000, maybe 11,000 miles it was noticeable at about 40 Mph, but only if I let go of the handles bars. Other than that, not an issue.
I parked the bike for the season and by the time spring rolled around I have forgotten about it.
Within the first week of spring I had installed new stock tires, as in the factory Dunlop's. One other change, during the winter I managed to score a brand new, 0-miles take-off 1300r model rear wheel, including the tire, rotor, spacer, everything ($160)

So, stock spoke wheel with new tire up front and stock cast wheel and new tire in the rear, I'm all set!
Everything was fine for most for the summer. The wobble did come and go, but I was never really able to notice a pattern to it. And then about 15 of us did an overnighter to the City of Fox, Alaska about 20 miles or so North of Fairbanks, and about 400 miles North of Anchorage where I live. About 200 miles out it started raining and it rained the rest of the way into Fox. Rained ALL NIGHT, and when we pulled out the following morning it was still raining and continued to do so until we were about 200 miles out of Anchorage. In other words it rained continuously for over 400 miles.
What's my point in all of this you ask, well... I had forgotten the rain cover for my Leather pack, I also had a tent, inflatable sleeping pad and a down sleeping bag hanging out back there, so by the time we hit clear weather again all of that exposed gear had more than doubled in weight and was now well over 250 pounds. Add to that my weight, hint - My Handle is BigD - and now you know that my poor bike was overloaded and most of it was hanging over the rear tire.

Yeah, I know, I'm starting to ramble, and you can't figure out what I'm talking about yet...

Anyway, by the time we hit Wasilla, AK - about 50 miles out of Anchorage - my bike was handling so bad I was having a hard time keeping pace with some of the other bikes, especially in the turns. At Wasilla I broke from the group and headed West about 10 miles to my daughter's house. In that 10 mile stretch I set my speed at about 45 Mph and twice the wobble got so bad I thought I was going to loose it. When I arrive at her house I stripped all of the wet gear off the bike. It was then that I discovered just how heavy that gear had gotten, I also discovered that the center bolt on the right rear fender brace was complete loose and would have fallen out had the saddle bag not been holding it in. So I stripped the bags off, run that bolt back in and checked all of the others. I left all of my gear at my daughters and rode the last 50 miles into Anchorage.

WOW! What a difference~ the wobble was almost completely gone, still had a handling issue leaning into turns, but the wobble was almost gone. This was also the first time I had ever ridden the bike farther than abound the block without loaded saddle bags on it. So, No extra weight at all other than the windshield. Interesting...
The following day I started checking every bolt I could think of that the stealer might have ever touched... It was then I discovered the upper and lower bushings on both shocks were, well - completely shot.... That was the handling issue going into the turns. At speed it was letting the rear of the bike wallow around. Not a good feeling! New Progressive 412 HD's took care of that, but the wobble returned just as soon as I added any weight to the back of the bike, like saddle bags with stuff in them! So I unloaded the bags completely and rode. The wobble was still there, but greatly diminished. Then for strange reason I decided the windshield need polishing and to do that I took it off.
As I am doing that one of the guys called and wanted to do a quick trip Girdwood for lunch, about 40 miles South of Anchorage, lots of turns and a few nice straight stretches. I go and I go with No windshield and no saddle bags...

We weren't 10 miles out when it suddenly dawned on me.... other than the sissy bar and rack, the bike is Completely Stripped back to its stock configuration and there is NO Wobble at Any Speed and the turns are now flawless.... Dragging the running boards at over, yeah - fast....... YeeHaw!

So, what's my point in all of this -
Fully loaded, and all of it on the back wheel causes a major weight shift, lifting all most all of the weight off of the front tire. NOT GOOD! and perfect conditions for that wobble.
That same weight will destroy things - like shock bushings! Ridding double or with your shocks set low enough to let the bike bottom out will do it too. And the windshield that is big enough to block the wind will also have enough drag that it will cause a major weight shift, enough to lift a lot of weight off the front tire. Again Not Good! and still creating the right conditions for that wobble.

If you normally ride with loaded saddle bags and a windshield and you have that infamous wobble, try removing both and see what happens. If it makes a difference for the better, then start looking real hard at how you load weight on your bike - it really does make a difference.

Oh Yeah, replacing those bearings will certainly help, as will checking the torque on them once in a while...

And I'm sorry for such a long read, but we had a bad, bad week at work and Anything Bike Related, even writing this, helps a bunch!!

BigD

Thanks for the replies. Dino, yes my fender is skewed or should I say the "tire" is definately off center, WTF over.

BigD
Thanks for the write up. I have to agree with you that the extra weight on the bike and the shield do contribute to the overall ill handling of the scoot. With that being said, to ride with a stripped down bike is not real world for me at all. Hell my tool bag alone is about 35 lbs and all necessary. "I ride with too many HD's to not have it with me" Actually I am just a tool guy and even with all the tools I carry it is still not enough. I run an hd fairing, trunk and saddlebags. Complete with a 4 speaker stereo in the fairing with amp. On trips all the bag space is packed completely full and most of the time I am 2 up except for commuting to work. I too noticed that the heavier I was loaded the worse the wobble. Over this past winter I did the all balls install on it and my wobble issues are completely gone. I am sure the progressive hd 412's I put on the rear helped some too. But I have to contribute the fix to the all balls as I had just replaced my shock bushings on the stock shocks prior to taking it down for the winter and the wobble was still there.

A note to everyone ....... while checking your bike for loose bolts I recommend pulling your fender bolts out one at a time and putting the blue loctite on them. I use loctite on everything as I put it back together. My wake up call on this one was when I found my front fork pinchbolts loose.

See you out there
Smokey

The second set of OEM bearring I had didnt produce a wobble, but I could tell they were bad, because the bike wouldnt cornner, going into a turn, it would start pushing and not want to go around. That was the 2nd set of OEM and the bike had less than 20k on it. So both of my bearrings lasted less than 10k. I dont like pulling the front apart, I use to race and I had to do it alot on the moto-X bikes, because they took a pounding.

What Im going to do next time I pull it apart, is , drill a hole and put a grease fitting in, I use to do this to all my bikes, I didnt do it on the X, because I didnt have a fitting and I didnt think about it untill I got it appart.

Wayne
Quit messing with the oem bearings and replace them with the 1800 bearings and races and your problems will be solved. Easy cheap permanent fix

See you out there
Smokey

I have over 35,000 miles on the 1800 or tappered bearrings

Cool Runnings, just North of me about 1 1/2 hrs. was the first to do it and I did it about one week later. I can remember the yr. in 04 I beleave.

I have CRS (cant remember shit)

That CRS is hell to live with, Huh?

See you out there
Smokey