I don't recall what the service interval was on the bearings themselves, but if the bike's more than 3 or 4 years old I'd take apart the neck, clean and inspect the bearings and repack with fresh grease.

 

I wouldn't bother taking it apart, unless there's an indication of a problem. These aren't like wheel bearings, which can seize up with little warning, and spill you on the road in front of a semi.

 

OK, I'm looking to check/adjust my steering head bearing, too, and am looking at the SM instructions for my 2013 Street Bob, which is closing in on 6k miles.

The book says to remove the clutch cable. OK, no prob. It also says to remove the anchors for the brake cable (ABS), and throttle cables.

Easy enough, but this is what confuses me - if the clutch cable can effect how the wheel falls away, wouldn't the brake line and throttle cables do the same? And, shouldn't they be removed for an accurate test?

It just doesn't make sense to me to remove only the clutch cable and leave these others.

And, then, I might just take the route of using JohnK's method.

 

The clutch and throttle cables are attached to the rest of the bike while the brake line is just attached to something on the forks unless you have ABS. The clutch cable you just remove the circlip with snap ring pliers and remove the pin, pull the lever out, remove the cable end and move it out of the way. The throttle you loosen the adjusters to remove the cable ends from the throttle grip and wiggle the little elbows out of the housing, and move them out of the way. I do the fall away by feel.

 

Kraken, thanks for the info, but taking stuff off isn't my problem. I've had all those things off in previous projects--new grips, clutch adjust, new fork springs--and I wish like hell I'd thought to do the fall off when I had all that crap removed.

My question is whether the SM method of just removing the clutch cable and leaving the throttle cables and brake line attached is adequate.

It just doesn't seem so to me but I don't have enough experience to be 100% sure.

I don't want to do unnecessary work by removing items that don't have to be but I also don't want to do the test and get bad results. So, I'm hoping that someone here has experience with my model and knows whether the SM method is right or not.

 

My 2014 dyna service manual does. Throttle and clutch cables will influence the fall away as I previously tried to infer. The brake line unless you have ABS will not give resistance to the steering head bearing and has zero influence on the test. Try reading your manual again.

 

Dude, try reading my post again. I do have ABS, but all the manual says to do is to loosen the anchor to the brake line. And, I have read and re-read my SM several times before posting my question, plus doing plenty of Internet searches.

I have the 2013 SM since that is the year of my bike, so perhaps it says something different from your 2014 SM.

And, my SM says to just loosen the anchor to the throttle lines, not to remove the lines themselves. Believe me, I can read and this is what is says.

Thanks for your effort, but you're not answering the question I'm asking.