My handlebars/triple tree is off to the left a little (2011 Road King). I have my headlight nacelle off for some powder coating and I replaced the riser bushings as well.

My hillbilly guess is that I can (with the bike on my Pitbull lift) loosen the pinch bolts to the lower triple trees and then loosen the big fasteners at the top of the fork legs. Give it a little twist and tighten everything back up. What size are the ones on the top of the fork legs anyway?

Am I on the the right track or should I set up a video camera for a great YouTube video?

To stay on task I'll add the following. Bars are straight, old risers weren't biased to the left and the bike has never been crashed. It was that way when I got it. I just never wanted to stop riding it to sort it out.

Thanks in advance

 

The tubes are going to align the upper and lower trees, might be able to cheat the riser bushings a little.

 

I'll give that a try. So if I understand you correctly; there really isn't gonna be any "found" alignment in loosening the the triple clamps.

 

Unless the tubes are bent

 

+1
By design the forks & trees "square" the front end. There has to be an issue with something being bent (tubes, trees, frame, bars)??? I went thru this a few years back on a new RK. Bought new in the middle of winter, so dealer delivered in a trailer. Come spring, it just always felt off. Stealer said nothing wrong. They did some simple measurements and it looked spot on to me, but never felt right. Later that year a simple check with a rotary laser level confirmed something was wrong. The more we checked, the easier it was to narrow down. The bars had TWO mild bends on the left side that we could not see without the level. Stealer finally admitted that the bike "may have" fallen against the trailer wall and replaced the bars and all was good. Not saying yours are bent, just saying it's possible?

 

loosen your pinch bolts, clamps, neck bolt, axle, and fender. retorque everything to factory spec. set your fallaway

 

Ok, I did loosen everything up and re-torqued it. Re-assembled everything and its square. That said, it could have been the old rubber bushings that I replaced with the poly ones.

Thanks men. Now, can anybody do anything about winter? ;-)

 

I would include applying the front brake and working the forks up and down, to settle the tubes in the trees, before tightening everything up. However on a recent bike the handlebar mounts are more likely to be skewed, in my modest experience.

 

goopd point. i wiggle mine and flex the suspension