truepath

I finally got my Hawk back together after replacing:
front wheel bearings
rear wheel bearings
chain (520)
both sprockets -1 +2
fork seals
fork oil (7.5)

now my front end is twitchy

any ideas?

PUSHrod

'Twitchy' is undefined.

Could be anything from misaligned forks to the wrong torque on the stem bearing retention nut to the internal spacer being left out from between the front wheel bearings. Groping in the dark here.

Need a clearer description of your symptom (s).

uchi

is it knocky while riding down the road? could be steering head bearings if it is. try turning the bars left to right and see if its smooth or if its notchy and binds at all.

truepath

going down the road the front end wanders and follows every imperfection in the road when I tip in to a turn the front end wanders, no steady line, speed has no influence on issue.
I did replace the spacer in the front wheel & the head bearings and wheel bearings are torqued properly.
36psi in front tire with no odd wear.
I am thinking that my old ball type bearings were worse than I thought and the new steering feel is a result of actually being able to feel road conditions.

nath981

weird, but mine just started the same ****. My tires are shot, front is crowned(tall and narrow in the middle and sides flattened); the rear is bald with slight flat in the middle, so i'm hoping this is the issue. This happened once before and i tightened the steering nut about an eight of a turn and that did it until the worn tires. Not easy to keep steady when this happens. I was tired from trying to hold a line by weighting the outside peg on turns to offset the countersteering and basically weighting the pegs most of the ride.

JamieDaugherty

Your fluid choice is pretty heavy (5w is the best) so that probably isn't helping. What fluid height did you use? I'm suspicious that your front end is riding too high and that's what's causing your issues.

uchi

could be steering head bearings. mine does the same thing. bike felt like it was gonna throw me off last time i road it, the bearings are fubared in it

nath981

Good description. I've been dealing with this since i put superbike bars on and figured it was something i just needed to get used to with the difference in body position. It reminds me of what a car or truck does when the castor is not set positive enough to make it track or hold a line. Anyway, in the process of moving the bar risers forward on the triples, I had to raise the front forks 10mm to clear the preload adjusters on top of the forks. Although it is not a good idea to change two things at once if you're trying to measure effects, I really had little choice.

Anyway, i could not believe a difference. Raising the front end totally eliminated any semblance of wandering. In fact, the bike holds a line so much that it requires deliberate bar pressure to alter your line. In other words, it's totally opposite in that it tracks like it's on rails. Now you can set your line and it will stay there. I should say that my rear shock has been modded by JD(previous reply about the fork fluid) and is lengthened 6mm or thereabouts, so raising the front was not as drastic as if the OEM shock height was maintained and wheel base is at the shortest possible since I subtracted a couple links during the 520 install.

I was getting prepared to get rid of my second set of superbike bars because I thought that body position was the sole factor in term of wandering. Now it seems that fork height is in the ball game too.

truepath

they re riding where they would with standard clip-ons. I do have the super bike bar conversion, so I set it as close as possible. I did have the forks @ 3mm different in the triples, adjusted them even and got rid of alot of the issue. she does still turn in very quickly. she got blown over sitting in the lot at work so I have to replace the grips and levers....glad I had the sliders.

thinking of moving the forks up, but I think it will cause the bushings in the forks to wear faster.

nath981

no, not up. move the forks down to raise the front. It's not gonna ruin any bushings. It takes a few minutes and a ride to see how it affects your tracking. Slide the forks down in the triples 5-10mm and take it for a spin on a twisty road where you have plenty of turns to test it out. Then you'll know if you need to adjust.

PUSHrod

I used to have an airhead that was sensitive to the settings for the rear suspension and the the spacing on the swing arm pivot. If the pivot was not perfectly spaced and even it would be easier turning to one side or the other depending.

Get a tape measure and make sure that your chain adjusters are even. Don't trust the indicators and the hash marks. Just a suggestion in the free or cheap category.

And I concur that the position of the forks in the bracket have no affect on bushing wear.

smokinjoe73

Its your tires. Change them.

This really sounds like what I was having until I got new tires. (especially front). These bikes are hyper sensitive to tires. I also changed to tapered roller bearings in the steering head. The ***** dont live long & dont improve with age.

nath981

yeah, you're likely correct. I know my front tire is crowned in the middle and flat on the sides. But, quite by accident, I had to raise the front end and this totally nullified any wandering to an extreme I've never experienced.

I'm not advocating that people raise the front as a permanent cure for wandering, it's just a temporary solution and an interesting phenomenon for sure, that is unless the bike's geometry actually warrants it. Like my bike with 6mm at the shock, 190x55 soon to be, and 2 links off the chain. I'll likely be running the front higher since the rear will be even higher.

thefauxnarchist