Call Bust.
He'll stop by with hiscupped hands sling scale and check that both of your nads are of equal mass and weight.
He'll stop by with his
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Drifting left?
- Thread starter EffinJR
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beemerdons
Certifiable Old Fart
+1, Gunny; with Old Michael and Papa Chuy both being Hibernians our FJR's also pulled to the left, we now carefully arrange our Fenian Shillelaghs to the right and the problem is solved. However, we did have to add more weigh to the left saddlebag to compensate for the mass! jes' sayin' and nuff said, aye! Begorah!
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Bokerfork
Well-known member
The road might be crowned.
beemerdons
Certifiable Old Fart
Typical Marky-Mark, dead drunk in the middle of the damn day! jes' sayin' and nuff said!
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MartyA
Well-known member
Given a non-mechanical cause, it is almost always the road. There is a particular stretch of newer asphalt road near me, has very obvious indentations where the heavy trucks have been riding. I get the bike in one of those grooves and it wants to drift left a little then it hits the other side of the groove and wants to drift right and then back again.
Sometimes it is how you sit the bike - do you "dress left" or "dress right" as the tailor would ask? When my wife adjusts her position I can feel the difference in balance.
But I wouldn't argue with anyone who thinks it is the Crown Royal either...
Sometimes it is how you sit the bike - do you "dress left" or "dress right" as the tailor would ask? When my wife adjusts her position I can feel the difference in balance.
But I wouldn't argue with anyone who thinks it is the Crown Royal either...
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BikerGeek99
Yeah, it's a concrete corn cob. So?
Careful.
You mighta accidentally bought one of them French FJRs.
You mighta accidentally bought one of them French FJRs.
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Typically, road crown would cause the bike to drift to the right. Yeah, might be a worn tire, but it also might be fork misalignment. As was mentioned already by MrMoto, I went through this fork alignment troubleshooting and posted about it earlier here. I was "lucky" enough to have experienced my bike before it started veering, so knew for certain that something had indeed changed, and it was not tire or road crown related.
A readers digest condensed version of the troubleshooting would be something like this:
Put the bike up on the center stand and jack under the headers to lift the front wheel.
Loosen the four axle clamp screws fully, but you can leave the big left side axle bolt in to keep its dimension referenced to the left leg.
Loosen the upper and lower triple clamps (one fork leg at a time) and rotate the loosened inner fork tube while observing the distance from of the end of the axle shaft to the outboard edge of the right side fork lower.
If you see any change in that relationship as the upper fork leg is rotated, if the axle moves laterally in and outward as the leg is rotated, even as little as 1 millimeter, then that fork leg is slightly bent. You can then find the rotational point where the axle protrudes the most and mark the top fork leg's cap (at the 3 o'clock position) with an index mark.
If you find either (or both) of them to be slightly bent you do not necessarily have to replace them. Just try rotating them so that the index marked bend directions both point inboard, outboard, backwards or forwards.
It is the relationship between the two fork legs that can cause the offline steering, not the actual bend. If you happen to find that only one of the legs is bent then you'd need to index the bent one either directly inboard or directly outward to negate any steering affect from the bend compared to the other straight leg.
Good luck!
A readers digest condensed version of the troubleshooting would be something like this:
Put the bike up on the center stand and jack under the headers to lift the front wheel.
Loosen the four axle clamp screws fully, but you can leave the big left side axle bolt in to keep its dimension referenced to the left leg.
Loosen the upper and lower triple clamps (one fork leg at a time) and rotate the loosened inner fork tube while observing the distance from of the end of the axle shaft to the outboard edge of the right side fork lower.
If you see any change in that relationship as the upper fork leg is rotated, if the axle moves laterally in and outward as the leg is rotated, even as little as 1 millimeter, then that fork leg is slightly bent. You can then find the rotational point where the axle protrudes the most and mark the top fork leg's cap (at the 3 o'clock position) with an index mark.
If you find either (or both) of them to be slightly bent you do not necessarily have to replace them. Just try rotating them so that the index marked bend directions both point inboard, outboard, backwards or forwards.
It is the relationship between the two fork legs that can cause the offline steering, not the actual bend. If you happen to find that only one of the legs is bent then you'd need to index the bent one either directly inboard or directly outward to negate any steering affect from the bend compared to the other straight leg.
Good luck!
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CAJW
Well-known member
Don't discount a barn door windscreen being part/most of the problem. I went through this rigamaroll years ago, checking fork tube aligment, wheel & swingarm bearings, planet alignment, etc... Mine was a "lefty" which took the crowned road possibility out of the equation. Finally changed out my Cal-Sci Large Windscreen for a stock 2003 shorty and the problem basically went away. The issue was more pronounced with a slight right crosswind so you might try swapping windscreens before tearing into all the stuff that requries a tape measure.
gumba
Well-known member
Ever notice that most
Ever notice that most BMW people ride sidesaddle? All 7 of my BMWs wanted to go for the ditch, except 1. Asked the dealer about the 1. He said they made a mistake. The driveshaft is a heavy sob. Hard to balance that out. My Gen 1 and 13 track pretty straight. My 2 Gen 2s both wanted to veer to the left. I went after it but never completely dialed it out.
Ever notice that most BMW people ride sidesaddle? All 7 of my BMWs wanted to go for the ditch, except 1. Asked the dealer about the 1. He said they made a mistake. The driveshaft is a heavy sob. Hard to balance that out. My Gen 1 and 13 track pretty straight. My 2 Gen 2s both wanted to veer to the left. I went after it but never completely dialed it out.
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