What's that noise ?

A little while back I installed a 6 degree rake kit on my wife Sue's 93 Goldwing . After riding it a few hours we stopped for a break and got some drinks and sat down to relax.

I asked Sue how she liked her bike and she said it was making a funny noise . Being afraid something was wrong I hopped on it and took it for a spin, seemed normal . Thinking better of it we took it REAL slow back to the house where I could put it up and check everything over , funny thing was the noise went away .

I checked every nut and bolt on the Tow Pac and then the bike, nothing ,nada , not a squeak . HMMMM I took it out again and it rode normal . After beating my brain up worrying about her safety I decided to ride on the back while she drove , still nothing at first .

Finally she decided to take off quick and low and behold I heard the noise , she was squealing the danged tire , LOL . I had her pull over and adjusted the air ride to put some more pressure on the back tire, completely fixed it . I have a wild woman for a wife, LOL.

Sounds to me like you could use a bit more down force on the bike's rear tire and you might have too much down force on the trike's cart wheels...

When I picked my bike up after the installation, the guys at Tow-Pac told me that to check down force on the trike tires, grab a trike tire with both hands and give a sharp tug upward and you should JUST be able to break the trike tires loose...

I ride an 1800 which is quite a bit torqueier (is that a word??) than the 1500 and I have never broken my rear tire loose yet...Just this man's opinion and we all know what those are worth!!;)

Your wife kinda sounds like mine - I always kid her and say she has two speeds - - - off and on!!! She loves driving my F-250 with the V10 in it and my tools are always plastered up against the tailgate when I get it back!!!

Les

PS - I would also go back into the steering head after a few thousand miles and recheck head bearing torque just to be on the safe side... It usually tends to loosen up a bit... I just installed a 4.5 degree on mine and I'll be in there in a few months rechecking head bearing torque...

I really appreciate the information and will look at both things. Mike