Steering Head Bearing

[Sarge]

For those of you in the technical know....are the steering head bearings on a GenII (2006) ball bearings or are they tapered bearings?

 

[phroenips]

For those of you in the technical know....are the steering head bearings on a GenII (2006) ball bearings or are they tapered bearings?

OEM is ball, several people (myself included) have upgraded to tapered

 

[Fred W]

Balls. But you can get tapered rollers (from All Balls) and upgrade them if you want.

 

[allrider]

Any suggestions on where to get tapered bearings? I need a set.

 

[Fred W]

You could start here:

All Balls Racing

Available cheaper here: PowersportSuperstore.com

 

[Sarge]

I was almost positive that they were balls but not completely sure. She has developed a slight deceleration wobble and 9 of 10 times that is the culprit. I have a GL1800 and many that have experienced the decel wobble on those have switched to tapered bearings and the problem goes in the history books. Fortunately my big guy has not shown signs of that yet but if it does I'll be putting All Balls in it. Now it looks like I'll be putting All Balls in my FJR.

 

[Patriot]

mine began a "click" on hard braking...changed to "all balls" at 93k

they are whatever motorcyclesuperstore.com sells as replacement (all balls brand)

 

[RadioHowie]

.....She has developed a slight deceleration wobble and 9 of 10 times that is the culprit.....

Sorry to be contrary, but on the FJR, 9 times out of 10, the front tire is the culprit. If you get the wobble as you decelerate between 55 and 45 mph, that front end wobble is almost always the front tire going (or gone) south. A committed minority will claim the steering head bearings are at fault, but consensus points to the front tire the majority of the time.

 

[Fred W]

Thanks for singing my song, Howie.

The bearings are never the cause, nor the "cure", for head-shake. But they definitely can "mask" the real problem. I have no problem with people putting tapered rollers in the headstock. It's a superior bearing design that allows greater pre-load settings, for increased steering damping, with les risk of dimpling the bearing races.

When/if my stock bearings ever go bad, I would definitely opt to replace with rollers. But the real cause of head-shake isn't those bearings. It's something else that is going around and around.

 

[Sarge]

.....She has developed a slight deceleration wobble and 9 of 10 times that is the culprit.....

Sorry to be contrary, but on the FJR, 9 times out of 10, the front tire is the culprit. If you get the wobble as you decelerate between 55 and 45 mph, that front end wobble is almost always the front tire going (or gone) south. A committed minority will claim the steering head bearings are at fault, but consensus points to the front tire the majority of the time.

I won't argue with that logic.

 

[Sarge]

Got really tired of the wobble in the front end so I decided to follow the tire logic and forget the bearing. DAMN!!!!!! Last night I set all of the pre-load and rebound adjusters back to standard, pulled the wheel, installed a new PR2, rebalanced and reinstalled everything back to factory torque specs. Hell man, I gotta new bike! All of the road vibration and wobble has been sent to the history books. It has never been this smooth. That BT020 had at least half of it's tread left and it was junk. It got so bad that I didn't even want to ride it because it literally felt unsafe. The rear PR2 will be here tomorrow and baby will have new shoes on both feet! Now, where to go?

 

[RadioHowie]

:thumbsupsmileyanim:

 

[Ignacio]

It has never been this smooth.

It's like the ending of It's a Wonderful Life! Clarence (aka Radio Howie) got his wings!

 

[Sarge]

:thumbsupsmileyanim:

Never miss an oppritunity to tell someone "I told you so!"