Flyinfool

Puc, don't make me take a detour and pick you 2 up on my way there, if I am in the cage. If I am on the bike I guess I can only bring one of you...............

Thanks Will That #7 nut that is supposed to be torqued to 80 lb/ft, I removed with no tools, it was about a half turn LOOSER than finger tight. I made my self a tool to push in the races. Your link did not work, but I found the vid I never learned any way other than to get my hands dirty to pack a bearing. Even my 3 daughters learned how to pack a wheel bearing when they were teens. That was my "payment" for helping them do front brakes on their cars. The look on their faces was priceless the first time they had to stick their hand in the tub of grease.

The trick of adding in some gap length was also good for getting a flooded engine started. You pulled all the caps back a bit and the extra length of spark gap would allow the plugs to fire thru the wet. I do not know what the theory behind it is but I know that I got me running more than once.

Now that sounds like a challenge if I ever heard one. My money is on Eck.........

@VanRiver I do not consider myself a highly experienced rider. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good. Yes you sound like a dirty old man................ @Uncledj I do not think it was the dimples that caused the lock. There are marks on the smaller bearing that I could not get in a pic that show that the rollers were skidding and not rolling on the race, whether it was from dried grease or other crud that got in there I can not say, I did not find any foreign material in the bearings. I am still thinking it was a combination of the top bearing seizing and the fender coming off that did it. I am NOT going to put it back the way it was to do any testing. One new pair of shorts needed is enough. I will never know for sure what it was, but at least I found 2 possibles that are both being remedied. If it was the bearing I do not think it would have fixed its self on the trailer ride of shame to my house. Once the wind loads were off the fender the plastic would have gone back where it belonged. But at this point this is all guess work.

Well it is to late now. The front of the bike is scattered all over my shed. As soon as all the new parts are here I get to see if i still remember how to put it all together again. I do intend to do a "How To" writeup on the steering bearings.

A smaller phone will also be less wear and tear on your lawnmower blades........................

Oh man, I'm a day late again. Even though the add has to be gone can the pics still survive since they are helpful to this thread?

2 weeks ago riding home from work on the interstate at 75 MPH, with the cruise set and just enjoying being able to ride again after last years health crap. I noticed the bike starting to wander in my lane and getting hard to keep on line. A few seconds later I heard a crack sound and the steering locked nearly solid. I was just able to muscle it to the side of the road and get it stopped while still upright and not hitting anything. It took enough force to control the bike that I bent the left handlebar. I really did not think I was that strong or are the bars that week? So I called a buddy and he came with his trailer to get me home, It was interesting loading a bike that will not steer. Now the fun starts. By the time we got it home and went to unload it from the trailer, the steering was back to normal. It felt fine. Dang, I HATE intermittent problems. Once I got the bike up on the center stand, and put 80 lbs in the trunk to hold the front wheel off the ground. I did the usual checks for steering bearings. There no perceptible play in the bearings but there was a very noticeable notchyness at center. So I figured that I had found the problem, worn out steering bearings. So I ordered a set and set out to do the change. I noticed a few strange things during the disassembly process. First odd thing I got to was the front fender, it was broken into many pieces around the mounting points, to the point that it looked like the front fender may have fell nearly off while on the road and that the steering lock "may" have been caused by the front fender hitting the front of the bike. There are scratches on the fender and paint transfer on the front of the bike to indicate this may be what happened. The bouncing on the trailer coming home bounced the fender back into its proper position to allow the breaks to hide. The next strange thing I noticed was that the nut that holds down the top of the steering head was not even finger tight. I was able to tighten it about a quarter turn with just my fingers. As I went in deeper, I found the same issue with the top jam nut for the bearing preload, it was also just a bit looser than finger tight. But the bottom nut that actually does the preload was properly tightened. I was able to get the bearings out without any cutting, my bike had the 2 notches to allow a punch to get to the back of the lower bearing to be able to drive out the race with very little difficulty. The top bearing was a bit more challenging, there was such a small lip of the bearing showing that I could not catch it with a punch to drive it out. Sooooooo. I headed for the basement and made a driver out of a hunk of scrap metal that I had laying around, I turned the whole thing to fit into the head tube of the frame but tight enough that it would not fit thru the bearing. a couple of whacks from below with this special hammer and the top race went flying out all the way thru the open door and landed out in the grass, making no sound for me to track. I had to use my magnetic broom to find it. My new bearings and bottom seal should be here today. It will take me a couple more days to get the fender repaired. I plan to install as much as I can till I need the fender. Once I get that much done it sounds like a good time to install the progressive springs and new fork oil. I do plan to make a how to thread on changing the steering bearings once I am done. I could not find one when I went looking. Yes after the fact I am realizing just how lucky I was to keep the bike upright and me on it. heavy rush hour on a Friday is no place to not be in full control. Then I remembered a post a while back of someone had a front fender break and drop down and lock the front wheel causing a bad crash. I guess some one still has some plans for me.............. Here are some pics of the outer races that I took out. The bigger one is the bottom one, it carries the weight of the bike, it is heavily dimpled, that would be the notchyness, the smaller one that just hold alignment and carries the weight of the front end during wheelies , shows signs that the rollers were skidding on the outer race, with some galling around center, This is the other possible point of causing my steering stiffness. Unfortunately I was not able to get a good pic of that galling.

Not me, way to much chrome fro me to have to get rid of................

Done???? Are you ever really done? Doesn't done mean it is time to sell it and start over?

Well ya see its likea dis..................... I was out working in the shed trying to get my bike up and running. Then I ran into some issues, with the work on the bike. I started to get a bit frustrated and one thing led to another.............. It might have been when I started to throw things that I might just have also thrown that big white switch....................... But then ain't snow pretty . Sides, If I cant ride, it might just as well be snowing.................

The progressives may look like they are to stiff, but there are many many of us that have put them in and I can not recall anyone saying they were to stiff. The progressives are progressively wound. Progressive means that the coil spacing is tighter on one end than the other and the pitch changes progressively from one end to the other, as in no two coils have the same pitch. The OEM springs are 2 stage, one end is wound tight then makes a sudden chance to a looser wind, so there are only 2 spring rates. Back when our scoots were built, CNC winders to do progressive were just being invented.

As Bob said, it is normal for the 83-85 to read in the red at stops, and close to the red all the time. Its just the way they calibrated the gauge. As long as the fan is cycling on and off while stopped, you are good.

So does that bring back some confidence since it is really not the bikes fault? A little nail in the center of the tire is not cause for a new tire. Unless it tore a bunch of the belting I would put in a T patch and forget about it. It looks like that tire has a lot of miles left on it. FWIW I put a very powerful N52 magnet on the bottom of my bike to help trip a certain traffic light that I frequent. I don't know how many nails I have pulled off that magnet, I figure everyone of them was looking for my back tire.

I think that was in the title. MISSED a golden opportunity.

There was a lot of activity across the street from my office window yesterday. There were barricades all over, police cars all over blocking the road from both ends lots of people milling around, even a concession stand. I found out today that it was a crew from the Harley factory doing a photo shoot of the new yet to be released bikes. They kept the bikes covered with very loose fitting tarps so that you could not even tell it was a bike underneath. They then pushed the tarped bike into position and pulled the tarp, did a quick dusting off, took the pics, and got the tarp back on as quick as possible. Talk about a golden opportunity to get some early spy photos. I wonder what spy photos are worth.........................

The first part is still always to crawl under to take a look and figure out what happened.

I guess you will hae to UPGRADE to a 1st gen to pull them................... Look at all the farkl......I mean safety chrome you would get to do again........................

So then what would it take to be able to pull the wave runners behind the bike. Ya they are a bit heavy, but I have seen some pretty heavy trailers behind bikes.............. Add some trailer brakes so you can stop without getting run over, the power is already there................ Just some more food for thought.................... Now can ride both the bike and runners.......................

Like mini apes..............

At the rate you have been going?........................ :rotf:

The Wing can be stagnant. It really has no competition right now, why pour a bunch of money into a redesign when you already own the market with nothing even close to comparable.

As for putting it on. MAYBE, if you were to screw some threaded rod into the 4 holes that hold those retainer clips, and then get a flat plat of steel with a hole pattern to match and a center hole just big enough for the shaft you could then progressively tighten those 4 nuts on the threaded rods to pull the bearing into place.

The term condenser is the original term from WAY back in the olden days, The modern term for that same component is capacitor. There are some other countries that still use the term condenser. If you go into your local auto parts store, it is usually old folks that would be looking for points and condenser so they still call it that, I guess mostly out of habit.