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I just recently bought a 1998 Evo FLHR. It has 35, 000 mi. I'll try to post a photo if the site will let me.
I just had it completely serviced with the Harley 10,000 mile. They rebuilt the front forks, new tires, I'm sure they tightened the steering head because it feels very firm. Brakes are great, they rebuilt the master cylinder. The whole nine yards and it runs really great.
Two issues. It seems to wander a bit, like it isn't tracking absolutely straight. You kind of have to keep it on a line. I asked the fellow at Harley and he seems to think that's par for the course with older touring platforms. Is it? Do they all tend to do that? If not, what could it be? Is this what the "bagger brace" is all about?
You probably need an alignment. Get the official Harley shop manual and all the details are in there. It requires aligning the motor/trans and rear wheel. The "fellow at Harley" has probably never ridden a real bike properly set up.
You probably need an alignment. Get the official Harley shop manual and all the details are in there. It requires aligning the motor/trans and rear wheel. The "fellow at Harley" has probably never ridden a real bike properly set up.
How many hours labor costs an alignment, do you think?
A competent mechanic should be able to do it in an hour, I would think. You need to raise the gas tank to access the top motor mount, move the voltage regulator, remove the bags and everything is pretty accessible at that point.
I had a few issues decades ago and had a good indy shop do it for me. I told them to go through the shop manual and do it exactly like it said, which is what they did, never having done one before. It really helped. Since then, I've only needed to keep the rear wheel aligned. And that is not by counting threads or otherwise measuring the adjuster stick out, but doing it like the book says with a straight edge. I would GUESS that your problem is probably mostly the rear wheel out of adjustment, but a full drive train alignment helps a lot. The motor, trans and swingarm are all one unit, more or less, and need to be aligned to the rest of the bike. In my shop manual (1986) the directions start on page 2-28, including how to make the measuring tool from some welding rod.
Have them check the endplay on the front wheel.
The book says 2-6 thousandths but you would be more solid at 2-4 thousandths.
If you have too much then your bike will wander around.
Great for the twisties but not so much for highways.
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Evo Touring Handling
