I know… this isn’t a ‘touring’ bike question. But I am putting this tread in both the Evo section and here since I read both. Any help is appreciated…

I had new tires put on my 97 FLSTS and I now have pretty bad head shake ondeceleration. I did not notice it prior to changing the tires, but I had notridden it much either (I got two bikes). Since then, my local shop (who changedthe tires) found bad neck bearings and replaced. The shake is still there. Theyrebalanced the front tire, checked wheel bearings and even swapped out the reartire. I still have the same thing. Other than the rockers... I don't have aclue what it could be. The bike has never been wrecked, dropped, kicked, etc.Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

 

put it up on a lift, grab the forks and check for loose bearings in the neck, then check for the proper amount of fall away on the assembly - it's all in the manual. Check the front and rear wheel bearings, check the bearings in the swingarm for play as well, check the front and rear rims to make sure all the spokes are tight and both rims run true. Get someone else to balance the tires.

If it is your local shop that put the tires on and then you noticed the headshake, then they replaced the neck bearings , but it still has head shake, they are not testing the bike after doing the work or they suck at fixing bikes or both, so take it to another shop to do the stuff listed above, or get a manaual and lift and get busy wrenching ! best of luck and hope you get it sorted out fast.

 

Check that tire pressure too. Many aftermarket tires need to be run at higher than stock tire pressures. Go by the max psi listed on the side wall of the tire and run it at that.

 

Rotors were probably bent during tire installation.

Check run out.

lp

 

Bent rotor or an out of round tire...just because its balanced doesn't mean that the tire is round...

Get the wheels off the ground and spin slowly, you'll see it...

 

If it only happens on decel, I'm betting the new fork bearings are too loose.