Sorry for the long post but I felt it necessary to tell my story. To start, this isn’t a be all or end all thread on bagger wobble, I think we’d all agree that it’s an engineering short coming of the way the rubber mounted engine sits in the rear of the frame in conjunction with the front of the swingarm mount under certain rising and road combinations. You could chase fixing it 100% til forever and never accomplish it...I’m just here posting my first hand observations from the seat of my pants experiences with my older touring bike. If this helps you in your quest to build a better riding and handling bike, then great! If not...

My bike is a somewhat lower mileage (33,XXX) 07 Electra Glide Standard that I’ve owned for about 6 years now. I have put about half of those miles on it and have loved every one of them. However, I’ve always had a bit of the dreaded bagger wobble under certain conditions. It’s never been bad enough that I thought I was going to lose it but when the rear end starts to dance a bit over 75 it’s somewhat unnerving to say the least.

I’m also not afraid to tear into the bike and I’ve had just about every bolt out and back in with exception of the rear swingarm and it’s components. So I figured it was probably time to take a look at options. There’s a lot of them and none of them seem to solve the bagger wobble 100% and they’re still super $$$.

So here’s the route I went;

-I replaced the fluid in the stock air shocks. What came out what pretty dirty, dark and smelled pretty bad. I went with the same “heavy” SE fork oil as I just put in the front forks and 10.5 oz seemed the best based on research. My mighty vac and a 1/8 npt adapter pulled it out and back in super easy. I set the psi just above 20 for my setup and will tinker with this going forward as I believe there wasn’t a full 10 oz in the shocks to begin with.

-I swapped in new Drag Specialties rear isolators and also installed the V-Twin metal bushings between the new isolators and passenger bracket mounts. These are just like the more expensive metal Rivera Primo bushings but about half the cost. Both of these new parts required removing the swing arm pivot bolt which is a decent task for a basic mechanic. Overall it went pretty easy and for under $100 I figured why not give this combo a try.

The stock rear isolators were actually in pretty bad shape and were worn down to the metal in a few spots from rubbing in the frame mounts over time I’m assuming. The new isolators fit snug and the metal bushings fit just as snug inside the isolators. The pivot shaft was lubed up with anti seize on the way back in and I loosened the front motor mount and shoved the rear tires forward to get the motor, trans and swingarm better seated in the frame and I’d say they all moved forward about 1/4”.

I bolted everything back up tight with blue loc tite and went for a quick ride through some of the past problem areas that would induce a wobble. All I can say is that I’m more than pleasantly surprised at how well the *** end seems planted to the road on every condition and road I threw at it. Grooved pavement, sweepers with and without bumps and several fairly high speed maneuvers were no problem now.

I’m sure something will induce the wobble soon but for under $100 and a couple hours of wrenching I couldn’t be happier with how these mods helped my bike handle.

HTH

-Matt

 

Yep. Called PM. Glad it good for ya, and good run down.

 

Nothing wrong with a long post when it's that informative and easy to read! Cheers!