Steering Head Bearings Adjustment

The next procedure we're gonna show is gonna be stem bearing adjustment. In order to make this neck bearing or stem bearing adjustment as it's known, you have to remove any excess weight or drag on the front fork. On this particular model that will include the clutch cable, which I'll remove and the throttle in idle cables, which Mark will remove from the throttle body. I'll start by loosening the adjuster on the clutch cable, and entirely slackening it. I can then remove the retaining ring, that holds the clutch lever pin. With the clip removed, I can then remove the pin from the perch. Again, anytime you remove components, set them aside in their order for re-installation. I can then pull the cable and the lever away from the perch, use caution you'll notice my painted surfaces are covered, you don't want this lever swinging around, I can then remove the nylon retaining pin from the lever, set them aside and then I can gently feed the clutch cable out of the top tree and allow it to just hang forward from the frame out away from the front end. Mark's also removed both the throttle and the idle cable wrapped them up and put a tie wrap on then so they can't swing around and mark up any Chrome or painted surfaces. Next we'll take the motorcycle, we'll remove the strap, the center lift, we'll lower the lift and we're gonna put the motorcycle with the front tire against device on the floor and do our proper steering bearing adjustment. With the Dinah removed from the lift and on the floor, I've put the front tire against the vice of the lift, I'm gonna get ready to do steering head bearing adjustment. We've removed the clutch cable, we've removed and wrapped up the throttle and idle cables. I've installed the piece of tape across the front fender in order to measure from a pointer which we've attached to the vice on the lift. At this point, I wanna remove the top center stem nut cover, it is a Chrome item, so we'll set it aside so it can't get damaged. I wanna loosen both lower pinch bolts. You don't need to remove them, but you do wanna loosen them. When I make my steering head bearing adjustments, the lower pinch bolts must be loosened but not removed, it allows the lower tree to move upward to tighten the bearing pack or move downward to loosen the bearing pack. Both of those movements are critical in order to get proper fall away specifications. At this point, I'll hold the motorcycle upright, Mark can install a center lift, you wanna jack the motorcycle off the floor, the front wheel only just enough so the front end can move full right and full left lock. Now again, we've got both lower pinch bolts loosened but not removed, I removed the Chrome center cap from the bearing adjuster bolt. I'm gonna take the pointer, I'm gonna gently bend it, again be careful when you're doing fall away. You've got painted surfaces you don't want this pointer to come into contact with the painted surfaces. At this point, I can hold the front end centered, I wanna make a mark, right where the pointer lies. You'll find it should fall just about center but it's not really that necessary to be dead center. I'll start to tap the front fork to the point where it just wants to fall away and I'll make a mark, I'll bring it back to center and I'll do the same procedure to the opposite fork lock. Again, take your time, use your factory service manual it's very explicit on how to do this procedure, do it a couple of times, double check your work, you don't wanna make any critical adjustments that aren't correct. Once you have three distinct marks on your tape, you can take a measurement. The specification for this Diner model is between two and four inches. You can see this one lands just a little bit under three inches, about two and three quarters of an inch. This falls well within specifications. If it did not, let's say to that your mark was under two inches between the three marks that you made going full right and full left lock, at that point, the front end would be considered too tight. You would wanna loosen your fall away. If it fell over four inches between your three marks, you would consider that front end to be too loose. In order to make your adjustment, you've already loosened your lower pinch bolts, left and right side, you would want to loosen, the stem adjuster pinch bolt which falls on the left side of the upper tree. You'll loosen that again, just loosen it, don't remove it in order to make your adjustment, again use caution with your pointer over the tape, make sure it doesn't contact the paint or even the tape when you're doing this procedure. If you were to tighten the front end, naturally you're gonna tighten the top bearing bolt to create the front end the bearing pack would be tighter it would draw the lower tree upward, create less movement on the bearing pack. I'm physically going to loosen this front end and show you the effect that it has, how much more the front end will fall from center. I mean, you can barely hold it at center now at any point. That's way too loose to ride this front end would shake as you went down the road, again read your manual each adjustment for each model including Dinah model changes, which would mean super glide opposed to Dinah wide glide 19 inch, opposed to 21 inch front wheel. Those specifications and torque specs are all different. Use your service manual. I'm gonna tighten this up a little bit because I did loosen it. I'm gonna re-check my fall away, make sure that it wants to fall roughly where it was on the original marks, and again before I can thoroughly say it's adjusted correctly you wanna re-tighten your lower pinch bolts on both the left side and the right side. You wanna re-tighten the stem bearing bolt. And then check your fall away measurements one more time. Again take your time with this procedure it's very critical. Once we have our adjustment correct, within two to four inches falling away left and right fork lock, I'm gonna re-torque not only both lower pinch bolts to 35 foot pounds, but I'm also gonna re-torque the upper pinch bolt which holds the steering stem bolt in place towards correct factory torque specification. With all three pinch bolts re-torqued, I wanna just double check my steering bolt. At this point you should not be able to move this bolt at all because it's retained by the upper tree pinch bolt. Before I re-install the stem bolt cover, I like to put a little Blue Loctite on the thread and I can thread the cover back down over the steering head bolt and just hand tighten it. The Loctite should hold it in place. With this procedure completed, again be thorough. You're dealing with your motorcycle with critical adjustments. Double-check your fall away one more time. Make sure it falls within the service specification, then I can re-install, re-adjust my clutch cable, re-install and re-adjust my throttle and idle cable. At that point, the front end should feel secure. I can lower the motorcycle to the ground, take it for a test ride. Steering head bearing adjustment should be complete.