tightening the steering nut

[vcyclenut]

I have always thought my steering nut was on the loose side. When I took to the dealer for the center stand recall the mechanic agreed it was a loose but said he could not fix it under warranty unless it knocked. Why do dealers do everything they can to avoid warranty work they get paid for?


I decided to tackle it myself.

It was not to bad. I bought an adjustable spanner. It is a nice tool and while i have a collection of spanner wrenches that came in the various tool kits for bikes over the years this is a worthy addition to the tool box and i found it on amazon for not to much money

I removed the tank and placed towels around all the fairings so I did not scratch anything. I only had to remove the front brake mc from the handlebar to get them to lift over the forks other wise it was remove a couple of the rubber wire ties from the brake side. Then remove the bolts that holds the clip-ons down from the top and loosen the pinch bolts. The bars slid straight up and off the forks. I let them sit on the towels

I then put tape around the center stem fancy nut as to not scratch anything and used a 1 1/2 socket and removed the center nut and loosened the two pinch bolts on the main steering head bracket

I put the bike on the center stand and used a jack with a piece of wood to slighly lift the front wheel off of the ground and the main bracket lifted off easily.

[vcyclenut]

its kind of hard to see in the pictures but there are 2 nuts on the steering stem. There is a metal plate sandwiched between them with two tabs bent upwards and two tabs bent down. This locks the 2 nuts together. Bend the tabs on the top nut down so they point straight out and use the spanner wrench and the top nut will come off easily. Lift off the metal bracket. You are now ready to tighten the bottom nut.

Surprisingly the manual did not give any funky sequence to torque this nut down it just says tighten it 1/4 turn at a time until basically it feels right. I was able to get 3/4 of a turn on mine with the steering still moving easily and unbound from one side to the other.


The bike feels much more stable at speeds and while accelrating.


Im no tech manual creator but i hope some people find this helpful

[JonTheChron]

Thanks. Which spanner wrench is that and do you know if can work for the chain adjustment?

[vcyclenut]

Thanks. Which spanner wrench is that and do you know if can work for the chain adjustment?

bikemaster 25-75 mm , $28.71 shipped on amazon

yes it works the chain adjuster very well

[Prof J]

Good info to know, thank you.

[marcoego]

Did you feel vibrations in the handlebars? Revving on idle and at speed?