Dear All,
The local motorcycle shop recently replaced the head bearings on the bike as there was quite a clunk going over pot holes etc and a bit of play under braking erc.
Having been in storage all winter but now out on the road again we still have the big clunk when over speed bumps or pot holes. I’ve taken it back to them and theyv’e checked the races and all is adjusted up correctly.
They suggest that it could be bushes within the fork legs themselves but they are at a bit of a loss unless I want them to strip them down. Has anyone else had this problem or know what it might be. The clunk is quite dramatic.
All best,
Martin
floating discs…floating? does it still happen with a featherlight pressure on the front break? if not, that’s all it is so ignore.
How long have you owned the bike, has ALL the oil leaked out of one of the forks?
Check them yourself, its much much easier to do than read about, honest. Just don’t use anger or hammers.
its easy to check ,take front wheel out see if you have play between chrome slider and bottem fork leg by holding chrome slider and rock the bottom fork leg up and down (hope that makes sense.( your dealer should know this)mo biker also comes up with good ideas to check also
Well, I thought I would give you an update on how things are going. The good news is that the problem is fixed but it was an unusual problem.
On recommendation of John from the Berks branch I took the bike to Scott at Ball Tech MC/S in Reading who is a thoroughly great bloke and reasonable charges.
He took the bike out and yes there was a big clunk as if headraces were way out of adjustment but these had been replaced. He stripped the forks down replacing with new seals (which needed doing) as there was only half the amount of fork oil that there should have been. Took the bike out, exactly the same! Scratch head time…
It seemed that the forks were topping out so we played around with various rebound and compression adjustments. It was exactly the same. More head scratching…
Scot with his mechanic then lifted the bike off the ground by the handlebars (he’s a well built chap) and drop it. One big clunk. So with a third person now involved Scott was on the floor listening for the clunk whilst someone else lifted the bike with his mechanic.
It appears that sometime in its previous ownership the front engine bolts have become loose and then left a while before being tightened up. One of them had come loose again and the other one had seized still with marginal play.
One bolt came out with a reasonable amount of heat etc but the other was solid. Scott ended up having to break the head of the bolt (having also broken one of his bars in the process) take off the subframne, drill out the high tensile bolt and retap the thread. New bolt in there and low and behold all is well.
It can take some time to get to the bottom of a machine’s mechanical state when you haven’t got much history from the previous owners or how it’s been looked after. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad bike but will just take some time to sort out and get back to the condition that it should be in.
The machine is also missing it’s steering damper so that’s the next thing to sort out. People on the Vll forum have fitted mainly Hyperpro units which are very expensive but very good.
I’ve already spent my money from what was going to be a non-druken enjoyable stag weekend on the bike so does anyone fancy buying me a steering damper as a wedding present?
Cheers
Martin
Martin thanks for the update ,like you say no history and a few problems don’t make it a bad bike .Ive had a good few problems with my 1100 sport but I seem to have a very well sorted bike now ,hope yours is to