Hi all, I have a 2014 Street Bob and I'm performing a fall away test to check the steering head bearings. Per the HD service manual, it tells you to, " Loosen, but do not remove the two fasteners at the rear
of the upper headlight nacelle. This will allow the upper
nacelle to float loosely."

Does someone know what they're referring to here? I see one shielded bunch of electrical wires coming out of the back of the headlight surround and those can't be removed at the headlight. Other than those there is just the bolt that holds it to the lower fork clamp. They don't mean to loosen the bolts on the fork clamp, do they?

 

How important is it that the fall away gap is centered? If I have 3" to fall on one side and .5" to fall on the other, that meets the gap size, and the service manual makes no mention of centeredness, but that just doesn't seem intuitively right.

 

It will be lop-sided unless you take off the throttle and clutch cables.

As far as I'm familiar with the term, FXDs don't have nacelles. From where are you getting this procedure?

 

It's a Harley Davidson Dyna service manual, so it must be referencing other dyna models which would have a nacelle. I took off both the throttle and clutch cables when I did the test.

 

Do you have the chassis near perfectly level?

The weight of the brake rotor and caliper will tend to pull the forks to the left.

Regardless, a slight lop-sidedness isn't unusual. Just ensure the chassis is shimmed level and the hand controls (cables, anyway) are removed.

 

Yep, I've got it verified level. Must be the brake pulling it to the left side. At a total gap of 3.5" I think I might get lazy, not remove the brake rotor and caliper and just hope that it's not causing more than an extra inch of fall over.

 

I agree. You should be fine.

 

One of the oddest things to do for the first time, or until someone who's done several shows you how vague the HD manual is intentionally designed to be, in this area. Not just Dynas, but all model lines.

 

For what reason are you doing the fallaway , does something not feel correct.

 

Just performing it as part of the 20k mile maintenance schedule.