my 74 kaw 900 and thompson cycle car I just put a lot of preload on the steering fork bearings and got rid of tankslap without using steering dampner
Tightening up the head bearings enough to remove front end "flop" is good but too much cinching up will spall the bearings and races quickly. This is especially true of ball bearings. Timken bearings will tolerate more snugness due to the extra loading surfaces not available to balls which have a small contact area.
Lonnie
Northwest Sidecars
A stearing shock attached to the direction or as simple as 2 or more kork or rubber disks between sheetmetal disks (as I have on my Jawa) below the lower stearing bearing make the trick.
I had that system on NSU Supermax, MZ and now Jawa.
As Lonnie said don't overtighten the bearng they will fail and once the balls are flat you'll get a bad surprise...
Sven
Hello Gary,
Sunday I put back on again the side car. First I forgot to tighten up the stearing dampener (friction type I mentioned before that looks like a sandwich of steel and rubber plates. It didn't disturb on gravel road in the farm, but a lot on paved asfalt road. With just tighten up the center set screw the tendency to slap the handlebar was gone completely. I was surprised that I not even needed to help with the plier to make some more force as I made the years before. Good snug hand tight on the butterfly screw was enough.
regards
Sven Peter
Originally written by gwalker on 6/11/2008 11:47 PM
my 74 kaw 900 and thompson cycle car I just put a lot of preload on the steering fork bearings and got rid of tankslap without using steering dampner
When I installed my sidecar, I had a little whenever I pulled in the
clutch to shift. As soon as the clutch was engaged again it disappeared.
I wound up taking a half turn on the steering head adjustment to get it
within spec. Now I have no headshake at all and no dampener. If it occurs
again, I'll replace the stock bearings with roller bearings, as they
should have been in the first place.
