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Seemingly progressively worse front wheel wobble


magley64

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Recently my 01 CBR1100XX has gotten a wobble or a shimmy in the front wheel at low to medium speeds. I can see it in the bars, but not feel it so much.

Used to be I could hit the throttle lock at 35, and stretch my back out, lean back and just shift my weight to make minor corrections in direction.

Now if I try to leave the bars at low to medium speeds the front end wobbles back and forth almost putting the bike into a tank slapper situation.

Any ideas what I should check, and in what order?

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tire pressure? I had something similar last year. Above 45 mph i got a wobble in the bars. I got home a looked everything over and finally checked the tire pressure. It was down 15 lbs and the valve stem cap was missing. I guess someone decided it would be funny to let air out of my tire while I was eating lunch.

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Steering head bearings, tire balancing, and checking torque of axle bolt/pinch bolt is where I would go after tire pressure.

You can static balance with 2 cinder blocks, milk crates, etc. Google is your friend here.

Service manual will have procedure to check steering bearings as well as torque specs for fasteners involved with rotating mass.

Also, do you have a steering stabalizer on it?

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2

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Reiterate what the others have said above:

Easiest = front tire pressure, worn front tire, front tire balance

Most likely = loose/worn steering head bearings

Also, be sure to do an accurate alignment check of the REAR tire. If the rear is out of alignment, it can cause similar handling issues to what you've noted. It also could a combination of all of the above.

You didn't mention that you'd dropped the bike recently, so I'm assumiing that's not an issue, but if there's been a drop in the past, also look to checking your fork alignment.

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Check steering head bearings, tire pressure, tire could be out of balance.

How long has the front tire been on the bike? Check for unusual wear patterns. Most of the time anyone has front end shakes its the tire i have found as the cuplrit.

To check steering head bearing slop. Lift the bike up with a front stand (lifted by the by the lower tripple tree). Grap the fork legs at the bottom and do a push/pull. The should be tight with no play. If there is play, then the bearings need inspected, if good they need retourqued to spec. If bad replace

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Avon storm 2 ultra (first time trying this tire, but my old angel ST or diablo stradas never had a problem like this... even after 10-12k)

32 psi up front

I'll check the pressure when I get home, and maybe boost it up a little to see if it has an effect.

Edited by magley64
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Avon storm 2 ultra (first time trying this tire, but my old angel ST or diablo stradas never had a problem like this... even after 10-12k)

32 psi up front

I'll check the pressure when I get home, and maybe boost it up a little to see if it has an effect.

Oh Jesus get rid of that Avon! I had a set of those on mine. Replaced them WAY before they needed to be because the older they got the crappier my handling got. They started out nice but went downhill after 4000 miles. Once I replaced them, bike was good.

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yeah, I'm thinking you might be right snake...

added some PSIs to the front, up to 36, didn't help... free wobble starts around 35, and sticks to 55... above that it's fine...

everything else seems fine... so far as I can tell (i'm no motorcycle professional though)

I'll tough it out until the rear gets to the end of it's life, switch back to angels front and back, and then if that doesn't clear it up, I'll have pauly give it a once over.

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I think the tires are likely to blame, look for signs of cupping or odd wear. 6k on the Avons is decent life and as mentioned, they're on the downhill side.

On your Pirelli note, I loved the strada's. I don't care for the Angel ST. Tire itself is good, but life sucks, I was over 10k on my last set of stradas, didn't even get 6k out of the Angels. Pirelli, in an effort to make a sport touring tire more sporty, has lost me as a customer. I expect 7-8k minimum from a sport touring tire.

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