[BRI]

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my 1200 aspencade has a distinctive oscillation of the bars when both hands are removed ,violent enough to scare the c**p out of me ,can any 1 help,as a educated guess i thought it could be the bearings or the wheel balance,i know the previous owner had just put a new front tyre on,but could this cause such a massive side to side movement of my handlebars,please can any 1 help...many thanks bri.

 

[Eamonn1200]

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I'm not sure what should happen when you take your hands off the bars, but is there a wobble when you have your hand on the bars, or when just one hand is removed?

 

[BRI]

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hi eammon,the wobble is when both hands are removed...

 

[Jason]

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Hi BRI. It might be worth checking the wheel balance, also look for bumps in the tyre. Bad or low fork oil will put a heavy load on the front end as well and can cause problems so you should check all three items.

 

[Renegade]

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BRI,

How many miles on the bike.. What brand of front tire was mounted and how long has it been there, (mileage). Has the tire been mounted with the correct rotation showing. Jason is on the money with the fork oil, bulgesand balance, so also check the steering stem bearing pre-load. Is the wheel bent? Sometimes this can happen if the tire is dis-mounted / mounted by a gorilla. All of this is covered in the maintenance manual and should be gone over and checked item by item.

By the way,,, Why would you ride with both hands off the handle bars?

___________________________________________________

All Gave Some,, Some Gave All

 

[Shooter]

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This may be of very small concilation, but every 1200 I've ever ridden would wobble the bars, and develope into a real tank-slapper at speeds below 35mph. With your hands off the bars.

Using a throttle-lock or cruise control to establish an accelleration load on bike, or at speeds above 40/50mph there never seemed to be a problem.

I once read that on early Wings,(1,000/1,100's), it was a very real problem, and was traced down to an un-even weight design/distribution in the fairing from the factory for U.S. spec bikes.

 

[BRI]

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thanksSHOOTER,many thanks shooter for that info,wonder if any 1 can back this up with a similar experience...many thanks all,BRI SUNDERLAND .UK

 

[Gilles]

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For sure the 1000 have a wobble at low speeds with both hands off the bars. When I took all the fairings and stuff off and made it into a standard, the wobble stopped. Once I put all the fairings back on, the wobble came back. I suspect that because all the weight is so far forward a slight balance issue in the fairing actually causes an exponential effect if you know what I mean. In my mind..small though it may be, it is like the effect of a lever where the force at the end is greater than at the beginning. These of course are just my uneducated and non scientific guesses. At least it sounds good!

 

[BRowan]

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I tried the hands off on Eddie Rowans (cousin of course) 1200 (86 model) last Sunday. It was real hard to do at 35mph as the bike slows down too fast with the hands off, but I noticed Eddie has a throttle locking thing so I locked it at 30mph going past the Square in Tallaght and boy did I get a fright. Bars wobbled like mad even though the road was smooth and just before the wobble I could feel warning vibes. It was easy enough to grab the bars and things were back to normal. Maybe its an age thing with the 1200, Ed never noticed it and he has the bike 4 years. There again he isn't crazy enough to take his hands off the bars.

 

[MisterEd]

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Although I'm not a 'Wing owner yet I assume they have some sort of rubber vibration dampeners between the handlebar clamps and the forks. My Harley had some that were worn out and caused front wheel wobble. I got some replacements made from polyurethane and that stiffened everything up nicely and cured the problem. I sure hope these are made for the 'Wing also because the one I am planning on buying does have a slight wobble but only when I oscillated the handlebars back and forth rapidly while doing about 45 mph. When I stopped and held them tight the front wheel "shimmyed" back and forth a few times until the "flex" settled dowm in the dampeners. If none are made in poly for the 'Wing I am going to turn some custom ones on my lathe out of nylon or UHMW.

 

[exavid]

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Greetings from a new member,

I've got a 1986SEI, the fork oscillation is definitely there. I have a cruise control so I can experiment. The oscillation starts around 32mph and stops, more or less, at around 40mph. At higher speeds the bike runs fine hands off but if you slap one of the handlebar ends the oscillation will begin. The SEI had weights in the handlebar ends to break up the resonance but it doesn't seem to have done the job. I have heard that using Progressive springs in the fork and installing a Super Brace on the fork there is a great improvement.

The oscillation really isn't hard to stop, if I lightly lay my hand on the bar it will stop, if I keep a couple fingers on either handlebar it never starts. I'm pretty sure the problem is related to a somewhat less than rigid frame.

This isn't too rare, some of the old bikes had big friction knobs on top of the fork to control this problem.

 

[BRI]

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:shock:this smiley sums up the look on my face when i first tried the wobble test...can i just say many thanks to you ALL for good coms,this is a problem but does not spoil my rideing any more...BRI,SUNDERLAND,U.K.