The Big Green Dragon got new.......

[Stanley Steamer]

front wheel bearings today.....the last couple of rides I've been on, I had a rough vibration in left hand turns.... .....thought maybe it was the left front bearing going bad??...... .....

Mike....Hubcapsc had the Honda wheel bearing tools so he came over and helped me replace the old ones.....even though we both thought they "felt" pretty good....the bike is 13 yrs old and has 91,837 on the ticker.....

This was the first time I had taken the front wheel off by myself, but I managed to do it without tearing anything up.....








After a little OJT with that new tool, we managed to pop the old bearings out without too much trouble....

this is just a couple of shots of how the tool works....





Had the seals and new bearings ready to go......






Finished product......




We got the wheel put back on the bike.....and then we replaced those little rubber boots on the front brake and clutch reservoirs....as the old ones were falling apart.....Mike remembered a trick to get them to seat back up in there without putting a hole in them....... .....

Lubed the handles back up before I put them back on and they work easy peasy now.....

I need to take a shakedown ride and see if that was the problem......if not, I'll have to dig further......

Thanks again Mike for coming over and helping me out.....buying you lunch at the Taco Stand just doesn't seem adequate enough.....

[Smokinjoe-VRCCDS#0005]

Mark......I mean Mike     is a good one I'm proud to know him and call him friend....I dig it when he break's out some of his saddlebags full of maps you know the ride is startin' to get good.

[Stanley Steamer]

Mark......I mean Mike     is a good one I'm proud to know him and call him friend....I dig it when he break's out some of his saddlebags full of maps you know the ride is startin' to get good.

They don't come any better for sure!!...... .......He made a "ride" of getting here.....that's the best way

[Fudd]

Stanley,  Let me know if that fixes your problem.

We tore into my friends interstate at Inzane expecting to find a bad left rear bearing.  It felt good on inspection.  After getting home we checked the front bearings and they too seemed good.

The roughness still persists, mostly in slow left turns.  Little Miller and I descussed going back in and changing them anyway, front and back if necessary.

I've never seen a bad bearing that you couldn't detect, especially if you put an axel into the bearing an inch and rotate it......before now.

[Stanley Steamer]

Stanley,  Let me know if that fixes your problem.

We tore into my friends interstate at Inzane expecting to find a bad left rear bearing.  It felt good on inspection.  After getting home we checked the front bearings and they too seemed good.

The roughness still persists, mostly in slow left turns.  Little Miller and I descussed going back in and changing them anyway, front and back if necessary.

I've never seen a bad bearing that you couldn't detect, especially if you put an axel into the bearing an inch and rotate it.

Maybe the weight and centrifugal force of the left turns cause the rough feeling if the bearing is one the "edge" of starting to go bad??......I looked at the old ones very closely and one had the plastic cover just a little out of whack....hope that was it?......

I'm going to take her for a test run one evening and see if that was the problem.....

[Fudd]

This is how I normally check bearings.



Even the slightest roughness usually can be felt by slowly spinning the wheel.

[Stanley Steamer]

We just used our finger to try to feel them......maybe I should have tried that method?.....I hope it's not the back wheel bearings.....cause we did those a year or so ago.......

[hubcapsc]

Stanley did all the work, Stanley's wife got home after we were done - "why isn't he
dirty like you?"



I'll remember this... 



There's 100 ways to go through the country to get to Stanley's house if you
don't care about time... I traveled totally different roads each direction, lots of
farms, fields, sweepers... here's a nice place on the state line...



I actually had a plan for what roads to take to get there... when arrived at the
Carnesville town square, I knew I had diverged from the plan  ...



The Honda wheel bearing removal tool turned out to be really cool...





-Mike

[salty1]

Any outcome yet? 

[Jess from VA]

Hey Samson, how's Delilah?   

[Stanley Steamer]

I took the old girl for a ride after work and just got back.......it seems that it's smooth at speed in left and right hand turns.....at least on the first part of the ride.....I rode down into some side neighborhoods with little traffic and slowed down some......

I "rocked" the bike from side to side at low speed...somewhere around 15-20mph.....and I can feel a "roughness" on either side....stand it up straight and it smooths out.....wonder if it's a bad bearing in the BACK already??.....We replaced those a year or so ago(pre-bearing tools)......or maybe it's my splines/driveshaft/U-joint??......or maybe it's just the extra tread on the sides of the tires??.....I have the Avon Cobra on the back.....I guess it would help to let someone else ride her and see how it compares to their bike?......

I'm guessing it's maybe in the U-joint because I think I can feel a little drive train "play"??......Joe helped me replace those wheel dampners the weekend that Old School passed away.....maybe 4-5 years ago??.....either way, it looks like I may get greasy again........

[Jess from VA]

Stan it is almost certainly a front tire, regardless of how it looks.

Turn up the music.