Steering Heaf Bearings

[Jambriwal]

My 2014 GL Valkyrie C had head shake or de acceleration wobble. If you let go of the Handlebars at any point around 45 miles an hour it will induce a slight wobble until it slows down to 30 mph. Yes some of us actually take our hands off the bars. A well balanced bike with properly inflated tires should be able to do this. Otherwise it is pointing out some type of defect. There are many discussions on the web and magazines that will discuss all the factors that can induce this wobble or shake. Including imbalanced or poorly designed tire, miss adjusted steering head bearings, misaligned forks etc. Some GL"s have it from the factory and some do not. Frankly a 750 lb Motorcycle with Plastic caged Ball Bearings in the Steering Head does not seem to be a best choice.
Last weekend i installed K & L Tapered roller bearings. First off there is a lot more bearing surface area in this setup plus i believe they will hold the applied torque setting better than Ball bearings. I am no engineer but this is how i view it. I have done this on four other motorcycles over the years and had satisfactory results each time. No head shake and steering input seems more precise and planted to the road.
I went with the K & L bearings Made In Japan instead off All Balls made in China. When i was a kid Grandpa and Dad would complain about Japanese junk , well i think that moniker now belongs to China. After all look at the precision products that have come out of Japan in our lifetime. Of course the USA helped rebuild there industries after the War. They cost a little more, about $59.00? for a one time purchase.
Having never worked on any Gold Wing or Valkyrie b/4 i had to learn as i went. To make the job simple as possible I suspended the Handlebars from the Garage door frame with all levers Etc. attached. I did the same with the Headlight After removing fork covers. With all these parts suspended it allowed me to remove Front Fender, Wheel and Forks without to much trouble. The screws that hold the brake lines to upper triple clamp and two bolts hold main wire harness are a little hard to reach. Otherwise it came apart like most motorcycles.
I am happy to report that after testing , Head-shake is completely gone, even though last years front tire has 7,300 miles on it. 

[Robert]

How many miles does the bike have on it in total, because I have heard of this on the 1500 but not the 1800.

[Jambriwal]

Robert, 7,420 miles as of today. The shake seemed to appear last year after a couple of thousand miles. I inflated front tire to 41 Psi. ripped of the wheel weights and added Dyna Beads. This helped about 50%.
As i stated above i have read some 1800's have it and some do not. Ref: Cruiserman Blogs.
I knew last year i would make this change in the Spring because i had to have Surgery on my right hand.Good news it works.
A friend had a 1300 VTX,  4,500 miles deceleration wobble shows up. Tapered bearings , wobble gone.
The 1,300 VTX also had Ball Bearings from the factory.
Jim

[Robert]

Thanks for the information, mine are fine now but will watch for them. But you would think that they would have already used the bearings you chose.

[st2sam]

After I installed the recent Mich. Trail front tire at 18,000mi. the head shake started.
It's not bad, very slight, and with no hands on the bars for it to appear.

I have decided to rebalance the tire before replacing bearings, hope that cures it.
(Until then I'll keep my hands on the bars)

[Jambriwal]

Looking forward to having 18,000 miles on the odemeter. That means i rode a lot and had a good time. Maybe this year. Just over 7,000 at this time.

[Robert]

Looking forward to having 18,000 miles on the odemeter. That means i rode a lot and had a good time. Maybe this year. Just over 7,000 at this time.

Hope you get out a more and enjoy that great bike you have sitting there, I have to say I just love riding on this bike. At 30 or 90 it does so many things right.