Wandering Front end... could it be the tire?

[Ray Ride4life]

42 minutes ago, williestreet said:

very close to zero.   

But not completely zero.

The last tyre change on my Crosstourer had exactly that, perfect balance with the old weights not removed yet.

[Landshark]

1 hour ago, williestreet said:

What you should do is pick up a balance stand, some weights and check it yourself.

 

The chance of a different tire being installed and balancing out with exactly the same amount of weight in exactly the same position IMO is very close to zero.   The second shop likely didn't even check it.  

 

Balancing a tire is not rocket science.  It takes less than 10 minutes, and with a good quality stand you can also check the wheel for lateral and radial true.

Even if you don't feel confident to true the wheel yourself, you will know what the problem is and can mark the wheel and relay this information to the shop you choose.  They are more ;likely to do a quality job if you tell them you checked it and it is 2mm off laterally, because they know you will check it when you get it back.

 

There are lots of jobs a dealer might be the right choice to get them fixed.  Changing tires is not one of them.  Pick up a few tire irons and learn to do tire changes and balancing yourself.  The money you saved will pay for the balance stand.  

You do not need a fancy tire machine.  I  have used an old trans fluid drum and irons for the last 20 years and it still works fine.  Homemade balancer for most of those years but I did finally buy a cheap Princess Auto balancer (Canadian equivalent of harbor freight) a few years back.  

 

Personally I would ride it as you have it now until you get a balance stand and check it yourself.

Good luck.

 

 

 

 

 

I agree 100%.  Learn to repair your own stead.  It was poor workmanship like this from the local bike shop that caused me to do my own tire repairs.  Then I decided to repair all the stuff that falls apart or needs general maintenance as well.  And the price the shop charges for hourly rates is stupidly high.  It won't take long to pay for your new tools.  

[Sledgehammer]

11 hours ago, prowlnS10 said:

A common problem when the front wheel has been removed is ensuring equal gap for the rotor & brake pads for the right caliper because of the floating axle design...it's natural resting position will have the rotor rubbing the caliper body....if the rotor rubs on the caliper directly or as it heats up it will cause the exact weave/head shake you mention.  

Tenere 700: Correct Fork Alignment - Floating Right Fork Needs to be Set Correctly on Axle to Obtain Equal Gap for Brake Caliper & Rotor - Service Manual Front Wheel & Tightening Torques - 'Everything Tenere' & Dave Moss Videos: Align Fork Legs Properly After Mounting The Wheel

---

Yamaha Tenere 700, Yamaha Super Tenere 1200 ES, Ride Reviews

 

Thanks for the info. I noticed that on my first tire change. The resting position of the fork is about 1/8" from being seated against the spacer. I have always just pushed it in before tightening the pinch bolts. I've never looked at the rotor position but haven't noticed any rubbing. 

[Kavika1991]

I’m putting this here so it can hopefully help someone. 
 

It might not apply to your specific problem, but. This is how I solved my head wobble.

I’m no mechanic, or suspension specialist. I’m just a dude on a bike trying to help other dudes on bikes. So here goes. 

 

The T7 never felt stable to me from the dealership. I didn’t even feel like I could avoid an obstacle on the road at speeds without upsetting the bike. On the freeway, passing was very unstable. 
 

At 89MPH the bike would begin waging its tail. If I sat back, it would stop waging but it felt like it was on the edge. Sometimes, depending on the road, the front would dribble like  the tire was out of balance. 
 

I checked the suspension and I did my best to set the sags. I was not able to get anywhere close to proper sags across the board. I changed tires that helped a bit. Probably because they were heavier. I played around with shock and fork settings. If it got better in one aspect range it got worse in the other. It was maddening. 
 

So I went all in. I started with the springs. I have racks, a stand and a bunch of stuff that added a large amount of weight. I’m not exactly svelte. Between myself and my kit, add ons and gear, I was 70% at the limits of the suspension. 
 

In went the K-Tech springs. Redid all the forks consumables. They were rough. Especially the guides. Then I meticulously aligned the forks. Now finally, I was able to set up all my sags within optimal range. Then I spent two days dialing in the suspension, first the shock, then the forks. One setting at a time. 
 

The bike now handles like a dream, off road it’s controlled and planted. On road it feels like a completely different machine, I can rail turns and pass with confidence and control. No more wagging all the way up to the speed limiter.  
 

Moral of the story. If you are having suspension issues. Check the basics, bring the bike into specifications, if you can’t, that might be the root of your problem. 
 

It was an easy upgrade, with the most basic tools. The only special tool I used was a torque wrench and a fork gauge. Not cheap, but still cheaper than one hour of labor at the shop. And you should probably own these anyway. Hope it helps. 
 

 

Edited December 28, 2021 by Kavika1991

[Larson627]

On 12/27/2021 at 11:55 PM, Kavika1991 said:

I’m putting this here so it can hopefully help someone. 
 

It might not apply to your specific problem, but. This is how I solved my head wobble.

I’m no mechanic, or suspension specialist. I’m just a dude on a bike trying to help other dudes on bikes. So here goes. 

 

The T7 never felt stable to me from the dealership. I didn’t even feel like I could avoid an obstacle on the road at speeds without upsetting the bike. On the freeway, passing was very unstable. 
 

At 89MPH the bike would begin waging its tail. If I sat back, it would stop waging but it felt like it was on the edge. Sometimes, depending on the road, the front would dribble like  the tire was out of balance. 
 

I checked the suspension and I did my best to set the sags. I was not able to get anywhere close to proper sags across the board. I changed tires that helped a bit. Probably because they were heavier. I played around with shock and fork settings. If it got better in one aspect range it got worse in the other. It was maddening. 
 

So I went all in. I started with the springs. I have racks, a stand and a bunch of stuff that added a large amount of weight. I’m not exactly svelte. Between myself and my kit, add ons and gear, I was 70% at the limits of the suspension. 
 

In went the K-Tech springs. Redid all the forks consumables. They were rough. Especially the guides. Then I meticulously aligned the forks. Now finally, I was able to set up all my sags within optimal range. Then I spent two days dialing in the suspension, first the shock, then the forks. One setting at a time. 
 

The bike now handles like a dream, off road it’s controlled and planted. On road it feels like a completely different machine, I can rail turns and pass with confidence and control. No more wagging all the way up to the speed limiter.  
 

Moral of the story. If you are having suspension issues. Check the basics, bring the bike into specifications, if you can’t, that might be the root of your problem. 
 

It was an easy upgrade, with the most basic tools. The only special tool I used was a torque wrench and a fork gauge. Not cheap, but still cheaper than one hour of labor at the shop. And you should probably own these anyway. Hope it helps. 
 

 

X2 on all of this, I had read your post before really getting to ride my bike a whole lot, but I found after installing enduro tires it did the exact slow wobble you described at higher speeds. I stopped on the side of the road, added a few clicks to my preload in the rear, and it got better. Stopped and added a few more, and it went away entirely. I mention this because I had just replaced the springs, but did not set the race sag properly. I had backed the preload off too far. It still needs to be dialed in but it sounds like too little preload in the rear, something worth trying even if you think you have it set perfectly.  

 

It is also possible that my front tire balance is way off, as others have mentioned, and the extra preload just put more weight on the front wheel and settled it out. I will have to check that as well. 

[Sledgehammer]

Well after a couple of weeks of riding, it still doesn't have the high speed wobble. 

This got me to really thinking about the original Tractionator tire. I wanted to learn to change out my own tire anyway, so I watched a couple of video's, re-read the posts above and decided to reinstall the Tractionator tire on the front. 

One of my buddies told me to look for the mark on the tire that is supposed to be installed aligning with the valve stem. 

 

I took me right at 1 hour and 15 minutes start to finish to remount the tire. I left all the weights off and went for a ride and it's just as steady as with the tkc80. 

 

In the end, it looks like it was only the weights that were causing all my issues. I have no vibration that is noticeable, so I wonder why I needed all those weights to begin with?

Edited December 30, 2021 by Sledgehammer

[AZJW]

@Sledgehammer My guess is that the balance job you got from Cyclegear wasn't done properly.   I'm with @williestreetin that doing your own balancing is the best way to confirm your wheel/ tire combo is in balance. My tube type RallyZ front didn't play well on pavement, especially grooves, with no amount of balancing,  alignment or suspension tuning fixing the issue, but the RallyZ is more aggressive than the GPS. Glad you got it sorted and got your first tire change out of the way. Now you'll be ready if you need to do one on the trail! 

[loneranger700]

I run motoz also. This might be really and truly the dumbest thing I’ve ever mentioned but.. Have you tried accelerating hard without two hands on the handlebars?

 

It turns out my left has was the culprit all along. Yeah.. Not even making that up..

[Sledgehammer]

28 minutes ago, loneranger700 said:

I run motoz also. This might be really and truly the dumbest thing I’ve ever mentioned but.. Have you tried accelerating hard without two hands on the handlebars?

 

It turns out my left has was the culprit all along. Yeah.. Not even making that up..

I understand what you are saying, as you twist and release the throttle, the natural movement would move the bar.  Mine does it while on the freeway, I'm not really accelerating that hard.  If I am running 65ish and accelerate slowly to 75 it won't necessarily start going back and forth immediately. Sometimes I can get a mile out of it before it starts wondering around.  My buddy has the same bike and we are supposed to meet up for the Arizona BDR next month, I am going to compare bikes then. 

[Stevoh]

Something to add to this wandering front end business, I had my suspension upgraded and fitted motoz tractionator adventure front and back at the same time, immediately noticed the front end change in regards to wandering and following grooves in the road, also noticed a knocking in the front around this time which I couldn't nail down, I put all down to the tyres, recently  posted that I discovered loose steering head most likely from new, anyways replacement of steering head bearings and subsequent test ride and wandering front end and groove following all but gone on the same tires, on dirt there is still quite a bit of noise around the cluster  over sharp bumps everything is as it should be, my point is its easy to dismiss a noise in the front end as not being steering head looseness, if someone rides mostly on road they may not hear any knocking noise and just experience wandering front end, worth checking  steering head bearings and retorque, also there was almost no grease on the original bearings!!