tightening steering head

[vifferman]

I've experienced all three main causes of the slow weave thing in the last few weeks, and they're noticeably different.
When the front tyres too flat, the steerings feels sluggish, and the weaving is random, generally following the camber of the road or imperfections in the road surface. When I had that shitty BT020 on the front, it used to wander all over the place, particularly on coarse-chip surfaces.
My head bearings have settled in now, but when they were marginally too tight, the bike had a quite regular weave, regardless of the road surface.

To tighten then head bearings by other than feel, you can use a spring scale, like the ones used to weigh fish. With the front of the bike off the ground, hook it on to the end of the handlebars. It should take around 4 to 6 pounds of pull to move the handlebar.

One more thing - it's quite common for bikes to develop a notch in the head bearings around the straight-ahead position. You can feel this if you jack the front of the bike up, and move the wheel side to side. Mine was like this, and I didn't notice till I was riding it around waiting for the new bearings to arrive, and then it was quite apparent it had a slight reluctance just as I started to tip into a corner. I'd thought it was the tyres!
Now, with the Azaros on board, new head bearings, new brake pads, and a Power Commander on board (more on that later), it's great! Love it!

[F5 Dave]

The steering head bearings? I was suggestnig the TL would be a damn site harder on the st brgs than a CBR. But better to check all these things. Bent discs will bugger st brgs quick smart. Getting them out can be a drama but there are a few threads here to search on. Mig welder helps getting steering bearings out.

[vifferman]

Just don't do what a guy on one of the VR forums did - he'd read that you had to torque new bearings down to some astronomical figure to get them bedded, then back them off. Unfortunately, that was for steel frames, and while he was till torquing them down, he hard an ominous 'crack'.
Yup, he busted the seat in his headstock.

Luckily, he was an engineer, and he got a workmate to weld up the headstock, then he milled it with his own milling machine. Saved him several thousand for a new frame!
The bit I liked was the shot of his bike after disassembly. You'd think in terms of removing the engine and other bits from the frame, but due to the way the VFR800 is constructed, he removed the frame from the bike. It looked very strange, with the engine, swingarm, etc. sitting there on the ground, minus frame and front end.