Loose Steering Head?

My 06, purchased in October, has 3,500mi. Seems the steering head is loosed, all kinds of noise on the bumps. My question here is warranty, should Yamaha fix it or just do it myself as many of you have?

The consensus is going to be do you trust your dealer to do this? Tightening the nut on the bearing requires a special tool that your dealer is not likely to stock, consequently many of them use a drift which is not the best method available.

It is up to you. Your dealer should fix it under warranty if you have a dealer you trust and you don't mind leaving your bike there for a day or two. OTOH, if you're handy with tools and plan on working on your own bike then tightening the steering stem is pretty simple.

My $.20 Get the tool, or make one.

I got mine from Bike Jonny (Google Search)

The adjustment is simple, and you'll want to have this tool handy (and the front axle tool that comes with it).

If you have the tools it's a 10 minute adjustment.

In the short term, perhaps someone in your area has the tool and will loan it to you or help you tighten your head bearings. If you were close to me I'd do that.

polarnut said:

My 06, purchased in October, has 3,500mi. Seems the steering head is loosed, all kinds of noise on the bumps. My question here is warranty, should Yamaha fix it or just do it myself as many of you have?

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Do it yourself. In fact, I would replace those ball bearings in the steering stem with these..... ALLBALLS PART # 22-1003. I did it and the diffence in steering was quite a bit. The bearing kit was about $40. It's well worth the time, and it's not hard to do.

Rick

My '06 lock rings were free spinning (once the upper tripple clamp was removed) after 4.4k miles. I noticed the klunk on my last road trip. Bounce kindly loaned me his spanner which made short work of the job. However, I'd not hesitate to tap it around with a wood dowl in a pinch. It's easy to tell if it's too loose (klunk) and too tight (steering binds on free flop test) which would get you by until the tool comes in.

You're welcome to borrow mine, but I won't be in the Syracuse area for a week and a half.

Thanks to all of you, great and expected answers. Don't post much but I'm here watching and learning! V65, thanks for the offer, but I've decided to buy the tool. What the heck, I love the bike and going to keep it a while!

So if one puts the bike up on the center stand, is there a test to see if there is loosness at the bearing. Like grabbing the forks and push and pull forward and back to check? Or should one just torque the big stem nut on top? A little confused. PM. <>< :blink:

painman said:

So if one puts the bike up on the center stand, is there a test to see if there is loosness at the bearing. Like grabbing the forks and push and pull forward and back to check? Or should one just torque the big stem nut on top? A little confused. PM. <>< :blink:

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Yep, if your bearings are very loose you will be able to feel play in the steering head when you push and pull on the fork tubes. Up and down play will probably show up first. It is easier to test this if you have the front wheel off the ground.

I have an 06 AE and have a clunk in the front end when going over some bumps in the road., I used the Yamaha tool to tighten to spec the steering head and still had the clunking front end. Then I retorqued my left first and then right side front engine mounts and the clunk has been eliminate. Hope this maybe helpful.

painman said:

So if one puts the bike up on the center stand, is there a test to see if there is loosness at the bearing. Like grabbing the forks and push and pull forward and back to check? Or should one just torque the big stem nut on top? A little confused. PM. <>< :blink:

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Its not the big stemnut you torque, its the nut under that. It requires a special tool that looks like a spanner wrench that you put a rachet in.

Jaycen said:

painman said:

So if one puts the bike up on the center stand, is there a test to see if there is loosness at the bearing. Like grabbing the forks and push and pull forward and back to check? Or should one just torque the big stem nut on top? A little confused. PM. <>< :blink:

Click to expand...

Its not the big stemnut you torque, its the nut under that. It requires a special tool that looks like a spanner wrench that you put a rachet in.

Click to expand...

details and photos here: https://www.fjr-tips.org/maint/shb/shb.html

polarnut said:

My 06, purchased in October, has 3,500mi. Seems the steering head is loosed, all kinds of noise on the bumps. My question here is warranty, should Yamaha fix it or just do it myself as many of you have?

Click to expand...

Polar, I just got a new 2007 that was making a knocking sound through the front suspension whenever I rolled over a bump in the road. Not always, but when I hit something that forced the front wheel back rather than up into the tubes. We did the proper check on the forks and found significant "play" in them when the manual says there should not be "any". My selling dealership talked with the local Yamaha rep and one located in Japan .... they both said everything was fine, but I knew better. None of my previous bikes had ever made a sound like this. We called Tech Support in CA and were told the front end was not tight (no kidding) and should be repaired. They overnighted a complete new set of tubes, and after installing them also set the torque on the steering stem nut to the required 85 ft-lbs (tech had to turn it almost a full turn to get it tight). Bottom line ..... all is good and quiet and perfect now. I have seen so many fixes listed in this forum for the problem of front end noise, and this was what mine needed. :yahoo: All covered under the factory warranty of course. Sweet machine now.

also set the torque on the steering stem nut to the required 85 ft-lbs

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That sounds like the torque to set the bearings, the final torque is much less, somewhere around 15lbs.