When I go above 20mph my front end or front wheel starts to wobble/shakes. Anyway to stop this or is this to be expected?
When I go above 20mph my front end or front wheel starts to wobble/shakes. Anyway to stop this or is this to be expected?
From what I've read on this site and my personal experience with my tow-pac equiped Vulcan; a certain amount of front wheel wobble is fairly common. Road surface, tire pressure, type of tires, all play into it as well as how the kit is set up. If you use a search word of "wobble" or "front end wobble" it should take you to pages of comments on this site from riders with a lot more experience than I have. I found that rear tire pressure recommended by tow-pac of 50psi in the outrigger tires minimized it to the point that it's hardly noticeable now. I can't give you any facts regarding full trike conversions since I have not ridden one; but If you do the search I'm sure you'll find very helpful comments from a lot of knowledgeable people. I know they all helped me a lot.
With the voyager kit it is normal to wobble at less than 20 mph and straighten out and run true over that. You need to check tire pressures, front wheel bearings, neck bearings and kit preload and kit alignment.
I'm new to the voyager kit, but I have no front end wobble with mine. Maybe something else could be going on.
Mike
2001 GL 1800 Black Wannabe Trike
Without a rake kit, this low speed wobble is fairly common on the outrigger type units.
At least on the 1800 Wings so equipped I have tested and that was approx 4yrs ago now.
I am also very puzzled by the fact that each of the companies that market these units told me if I install a rake kit, I could no longer remove the unit to ride the bike as a 2 wheeler again as it would be to dangerous????????????????????????????????????
The 2 units I tried were the Voyager and the Tow Pac. Wasn't aware of the Trigg unit at that time!
This wobble came in 15 to 20mph and stopped at 35 to 40mph and was very slight!
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I read somewhere a long time ago that 1 way to check the steering head bearing tightness was to ride at about 10 or 15 mph and hold your hands close to the grips, then slap the grips with one hand, if it wobbles the steering nut needs to be tightened. If you try it be ready to grab the bars cause it might wobble really bad, mine did. It also said that was a good way to check the trike too. I tried it on my voyager, it wobbled, so I tightened the bearing nut on top of the tree and got rid of nearly all of the wobble. When I got my motortrike, it would wobble a little at low speed when I would hit a small bump but after adding the rake kit it doesn't do that anymore. I don't know if that is because of the rake or the fact that the installer tightened the bearing a little more than the book calls for to take care of the wobble. Seems like Zook said to tighten the bearing a little more than what the book says but I could be wrong about that, you would have to ask Zook. Mine did not wobble at all over 20 mph, I think the spinning of the wheel should hold it straight, kinda like a gyroscope.
2009 Honda Gold Wing Motor Trike Adventure Kit
Like everyone said, go through the wheels, tires, bearings etc. If you still have a wobble put on a steering damper. It got rid of the little, low speed wobble on my VW trike with a Suzuki front end.
you might check the alignment