FORK TUBE LOWER BOLTS

[ekap1200]

Hello again from New Jersey, I have recently recieved some email, asking to explain why the manual wants the lower fork tube bolts also loosened to adjust the spanner nut for the bearing. Owners of other bikes tell me they have adjusted the bearing on their bike and have only loosened up the top clamps and removed the head nut, and head, adjusted the brg, put the head back on,and all is good. On most bikes it doesn't matter much, the top head will just seat squarely down, torque the nut and then just tighten the top clamp bolts to pinch the tubes. And all will be fine. But on our voyagers we have a sleeve for the air crossover and a cir-clip under that. If the fork tubes are too far up and you attempt to put the head on,the head will seat first on the air tube, then when you go to torque the stem head nut to 31ft. lbs, it cocks the head and does not seat squarely. You can't see that its not seating correctly and all looks good, but its not. Here are two sketchs of the front end that may help shed some light on this. First clue to look for is the Cir-Clip is up inside the chamfer of the air tube , almost gone from sight. This is why the lowers also need to be loose, and make sure the head sits correctly before torqueing. Gene Kap.

[biggersm]

Nice auto cad work.

I've tried to tighten things up but maybe I'm doing something wrong. I've been loosing up the 4 front fork lower clamp bolts but not the upper pair of bolts. The service manual only mentions the lower clamp bolts; should the upper pair of bolts be loosend too?

Perhaps it is best to leave well enough alone. High speed is managable and the steering only flops around a little in low speed turns; acceptable compromise.

[ekap1200]

Hello Mike, properly done up you steering will be a joy, When I bought my 2000 it had only 2k on it. The front end was awfull. Worst handleing machine I ever owned, I read up on all the posts in this and Abbikeboard and decieded one day to put an end to my nightmare. Started with pulling the front clean off to check brg cone's and cups ( which were like brand new money )then made up a socket for the spanner nut and repacked the brg's and torqued the spanner to 95in. lbs. Just couldn't see how the book spec for torque was properly done with a wrench, it just didn't seem accurate enough. Looked at the mating surface under the top tree and seen that it was only contacting on the back edge. I had noticed upon pulling the front tubes that the cir-clip was jammed up into the air tube crossover. I made sure it had alittle clearance when I reinstalled and torqued the top head and has been handleing like a different machine since then. I had all of the ugly wobbles at around 35mph and alittle shaky around turns, was really annoying. Glad I took the time to do all that work instead of just buying a superbrace. I don't think that would have helped. That summer I went down to the Smokies in NC and had a blast on the twisties. back to your question, if you adjust the spanner with the Makaw tool there is no need to take off the top head.And with the lowers loose when you tighten up the stem head nut to 31ft. lbs the tubes will go down. To do it with a spanner socket and torque wrench you must remove the top head. The stem locknut is what sets the bearing preload. Gene Kap.