handle bar shaking when hands-off

Hi All
great to see a dedicated Silverwing forum (i call mine Honda VFA - Very Fast Armchair)
its a 2006 400cc Honda Silverwing.
im its second owner, bought it a month ago with 26K km on it.
as soon as i got it i replaced the original IRC tires with a pair of Pirelli Diablo Scooter.

and now for the question -

while riding and handling - it seems to be fine, everything is ok and no shakes / rattles or anything is felt, yet, when going 30-40 km/h, if i leave the handle bars, it starts to get wobbly and shake.
is this normal? should i be concerned about it?


thanks


Ron.

Hello, Ron, and welcome!

Love the 'VFA' bit.

Hands-off wobble seems to be something that some bikes suffer from and others not.
If you do a SEARCH you'll find stuff about it and no doubt members will pass on their solutions in due course.

I hope you've found DennisB's shop - lots of superb custom-made goodies (no gimics, though) for Swingers to buy and worth every cent/penny/shekel.

Hi Ron
I had this many years ago on my motorcycle. It happened at 28-30 mph which was very annoying and only happened with one brand of tyre. At that time it was thought to be because of the lack of a straight groove down the centre of the front tyre. Check your tyre pressures and front wheel bearings. Maybe try a little extra pressure in the front tyre to see if it makes a difference

Hi Ron, My best guess would be tire being a little out of balance or wheel bearings starting to go bad.

Well there you have it. My best guess.

Honda suggests 1. Wheel bearing play 2. Bent rim 3. Improper installation of the wheel 4. Swing arm pivot bearing wear 5. Bent frame.

You may have a loose steering stem bearing. Adjustment on a few previous bikes corrected the headshake problem. I owed a GL1500 that was loose enough to feel the play while holding the front brake and rocking, or compressing the front forks.

Take a look at the video below for a simple test and the fix for the wobble.

https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1401175502815

The adjustment for the Silverwing can be found in the repair manual section 14, page 30 in the FSC600 Service Manual. Honda suggests using a spring scale to test the preload but I found the test in the video is sufficient for diagnoses.

That is very useful information....THANKS for posting this...billc.

Hi Guys,
thank you all for the info, the movie on facebook really helps - i will check this tomorrow, as i thought that this is really nothing, but it may be something worth fixing.


prior buying my Swing, i took it for a complete check at a special shop who expert in these things - they say that the Swing head bearing has a little "step" in the middle of its movement.
Could it be related?

A little step-----often problem years ago with Japanese bikes= notch as you turn bars side to side with wheel off ground.

Makes riding real slow difficult---could be part of your head shake problem, but check tires/wheels/load in top box also/swing arm bearings.

Are wheels on right?

John Grinsel

Great video explaining how to check and adjust the stem bearing! Nifty skull-motif headlight on that V-Max too!

Those bikes are the motorcycle equivalent of a GTO or Charger or something. -All muscle, crap for suspension/handling performance. =)