I’m looking for some guidance on a front suspension issue. First the details. I have a 2006 FXSTi Softail Standard. I recently swap over some front components to Fatboy parts so I could run Fatboy tins. I swapped in lower sliders, upper and lower triple trees and a front wheel/tire/axle/spacer combination. I also put in progressive’s 2 inch drop springs to counter my upper tubes from the FXSTi being longer than the Fatboy tubes. The swap was pretty straight forward and the only issue I had was when the front wheel was aligned the top triple tree was turned to the right (so while riding my left handle grip is further away from the bike than the right). I could feel it as well as see it. When you centered the wheel and looked down the forks the top tree was askew. I’ve done some research on here and I have measure and adjusted and re-measured so I know my back wheel is aligned to the frame and aligned to the front, it is not an optical illusion brought on by the handle bars being off, the fall away is adjusted correctly and my forks are not bent. I have loosened everything up and bounce the front end up and down and it was still off. With everything loosened up and sitting on a lift with no pressure on the front I can turn my upper tubes in the triple trees so it’s not binding. So it appears this askew state is where these trees want to align. I ended up loosening all the bolts and holding the wheel straight and applying pressure to the left side of the tree to align it and then tightening everything down. It appears that it is now straight.

So my questions. Is this common? Should I look for a new set of triple trees? These do not appear to be physical damaged so would I end up having to do this to another set if I bought them? Askew seemed to be the natural alignment for the trees so by “forcing” them into position have I created binding that is going to adversely affect the bikes handling? Is there anything else I’m over looking? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

Ignore the trees being askew when you first assembled everything. Do the forks function properly now that you have straightened everything? With the trees aligned to each other and the front wheel pointing in the right direction, you should be able to remove the front wheel axle with ease. If you can, that confirms that the fork legs are true and everything is correctly aligned. If not, that suggests that one or more of the parts you have used is damaged in some way. Let us know what you find!

 

grbrown - befroe I saw your reply I took the bike for a test ride. Forcing the trees to the left must have put them in a bind as the front end would get squirrely on me going over heavy bumbs and under hard front breaking. So I came home and loosened everything up and used my weight to collapse the forks a few times. I re-checked my fall away and verified it was good. I tightened everything back up and yep I'm back to my triple tree being askew but my bike rides and handles fine. I can take my hand off the bars and it runs straight with no vibration. So I guess I'm just going to live with it until I come across another set of fatboy trees and I'll swap them in and see what happens. Once I saw your post I checked my front axle. I assume you meant for me to loosen up the axle bolt and the cap bolts. I backed them off and the axle turns just fine.

 

duplicate post removed

 

Yes. I was hopeful that with the trees how they should be that the fork legs would be fine, that way the axle would come out OK. However I suspect if you were to straighten the trees the axle would bind when you tried to remove it.

It is just possible one fork tube is not quite straight, but the only way of confirming that is to remove each leg from the trees and check for straightness, which may require dismantling the fork to check the tube.

 

Well I've been riding the bike all summer and nothing has changed. Bike handles fine but the trees still appear slightly skewed still. I've hear a lot about solid or poly riser bushing being the fix but I just can't see how that would help as the actual top tree that looks out of alignment. But I think I will try the riser bushing route as a hopefully cheap fix. If that doesn't help I'll check the rear to front wheel alignment again. If everything is the same I'm going to swap in a new set of trees. I'll let you know what I find.

 

Bike as it sits now. I'll have to get a better picture.

 

Ok the skewed handle bar issue. After checking and rechecking the front end I decided to measure the squareness of the rear wheel using the bent rod method (I had been using a tape measure up to this point). I found that my rear wheel alingment was off by 1/4 inch where the service manual calls for 1/32. I have never had this wheel off myself. Every time I had a rear tire change it was done at the dealer. I guess I never noticed the handle bars being skewed until I took I replace the front end and then start watching for indication of a problem. I re-aligned the rear wheel and enrolled myself in remedial tape measure training (my old apprentice boss would have whipped me for not reading the measurements right the first time) and the handle bars are right where they are suppose to be.