head shake { wobble }

[funone97]

have a 2007 honda gl1800 with a dft trike kit ,bike has 28,000 miles , front and rear tires have 2,000 miles on them. front tire has 38 lbs in it ,rear have 25 lbs in it , stock triple trees , all balls neck bearings , torque to 26 lbs , has fork brace , progressive springs in tubes , Has head shake at 20 to 25 mph. would like to know if a steering stabilizer would help .. thanks

[Papa Zook]

Put your money into a rake kit and your wobble will be gone and it will steer like a caddy. A stabilizer is just a bandaid and will only make the steering harder than it is already.

[funone97]

Put your money into a rake kit and your wobble will be gone and it will steer like a caddy. A stabilizer is just a bandaid and will only make the steering harder than it is already.

what degree should i get 4.6 or 6

[Lee H. Mann]

what degree should i get 4.6 or 6

With Independent rear suspension I would use the 6 degree.

[Burnerboy]

Zook and Mann are totally correct above, with their recommendation on a 5.5 rake kit.....Man O' man what a difference this rake kit makes...I can steer my trike, w/o a bit of problem, or any kind of work, or pain using only one arm... I can ride all day, now and the only pain I now get, is closing the garage door behind me, (electric garage opener) CAUSE I KNOW THE DAYS DONE and now I have to wait till the morning to do it all over again....

You will not be sorry, changing over to a raked front end...........I promise!

Ronnie

[tfdeputydawg]

what degree should i get 4.6 or 6

If you have an extended wheel base trike, such as a Hannigan, 6deg is great.

If you have a standard wheel base, 4.5 is good.

I found the 6deg seemed to "wonder" on a short wheel base trike!

[Papa Zook]

For the shorter wheelbase DFT, I would reccomend the 4 degree over the 6 degree. Call me at the number in my signature if you have any questions or want to order a rake kit at a members discount price.

[CrystalPistol]

Lehman GtL on a '97 GL1500 ... I put a 6 degree kit on in 2004, light steering, much reduced tendency to follow road crown or bumps at rear wheels.

A GTL is Not a long WB trike.

[1800 06 Champion Trike]

I had the dealer, per his recomendation, to put a 4.5 on my SA 2006 Champion. Love it.

[OldNick]

Just my 0.02.

While agree with the rake kit (it makes steering much lighter and easier to control) I will say that I just changed my tyre from an Avon AV71 front _bike_ (not trike) tyre to a Michelin Pilot Activ _rear_ tyre. I did have a bit of head shake before, even with a damper, and it has gone completely with the tyre change. My next experiment is to actually remove the damper...although I am installing an 8Deg rake kit. (Very LWB Valk trike)

So if there is still some wobble after a rake kit, consider a tyre....more $$$ I know, esp at only a couple of K Miles on your present one.

[GoldWingrGreg]

My next experiment is to actually remove the damper...although I am installing an 8Deg rake kit. (Very LWB Valk trike)

8 degrees sounds like a lot. If that were installed on a GL1800, while turning, hitting the cowl or back of the headlamps assemblies would occur. Also, when the forks are fully extended, there would be to much tension on the flexible brake hoses that are routed between the forks. Be sure to check for that stuff when you are done.

To test ... support the bike so that the front tire is off the ground which allows the forks to extend. Now, check for tension on the front, flexible brake hoses that are routed between the upper forks. If there is tension, the tension could be keeping the forks from being fully extended ... in other words, the forks cannot extend further because of the tension. Then, to check for anything hitting, rotate the handle bars from side to side while checking to make sure that nothing (fork and triple tree) hits anything.

[OldNick]

Thanks for the heads-up. I was not aware of the hitting issue, but yeah it makes sense. The trike already has 6 deg, so I hope that does not happen.

EDIT:AHh.. I read your post again.....properly . My windscreen moves with the bars, as does the head light, so that does remove that danger

I am going to add fork extenders, so brake lines are 100% going to need to be longer anyway.

[OldNick]

Sorry. I am going to plough in here. I struggled to learn this and I think it's weird but important. It is counter intituitive.A Tripple Tree rake kit will ease steering force, but tend to DE-stabilise your machine. So for a given trike, road and tyre, it may make things "worse"...in a stright line the rider will feel the road...around a corner it will be lighter.Steering rake is directly related to stability and difficulty turning.: this is the angle at which the frame's downtube pivots the steering.

So you take a trike and angle its stem tube way out...the forks sit very flat and the bike is hard to steer...chopper..really stiff and huge turning circle. Lovely on a smooth tarmac highway.BUT..in the NORMAL world ( I am not sure what happens for extreme choppers), if you put in a raked Triple Tree on whatever frame you have, it may actually _lower _ straight-line stability, because it decreases trail.

But it will lighten steering and make cornering easier.So it may INCREASE head shake on lumpy roads at low speed. But it will be easier to control.This and other pages like it may help explain.https://www.google.com.au/search?q=r...2h71iwiAB2RgM:

[CrystalPistol]

"Rake kits" don't change the rake .... they just move the front wheel forwards nearer that point an imaginary line drawn through the steering stem intersects the roadway, thus lessening trail.... like making a shorter caster out of it all.

Stock, the Goldwing has between 4 and 5 inches of trail meaning the wheels contact patch center is 4-5 inches behind the point where the line drawn through the steering stem strikes the road. "Rake" kits or "power steering" kits which are comprised of triple trees that kick the forks out 3, 4 1/2, or 6 degrees more move the tire's patch forward without altering where the line (steering stem axis) strikes the road, thus reducing trail.

The old John Deere tractor with the tricycle type wheel set up (either two cambered front wheels side by side or the very early single wheel models) could be driven in fields plowing corn and over farm roads because they had exactly "0" trail as the wheel contact patch was in line with the steering axis. You didn't get any "head shake" in them even at road speed in highgear. One could crank the wheel over in a field and let go and it would simplay stay in a circle. We always used one brake, usually the right for general stopping (they never stayed adjusted well enough to lock the pedals together) and while the tractor's right rear might slide, no pull was felt in the steering. If that John Deere had been built with even a hint of trail, it would have been all but unusable except on a perfectly flat road.

Without a so called "rake" kit, you will not eliminate head shake at low speeds on a trike when the road surface is less than buttery smooth, the wheel will want to fall left or right as it travels over irregularities and also as the two rear wheels encounter bumps and holes and the bike is "rolled" over right or left which also pulls the front end.

It's all that "TRAIL" that is to blame. Kill trail in a trike, and that front wheel becomes less like a "big shopping cart caster wheel". Killing caster will also make it easier to keep the TRIKE straight when coasting backwards into parking spots or carports (reverse is slow, I'm talking about coasting now) as casters like to rotate 180 degrees when backed up fast and so does the unmodified front end of a TRIKED GoldWing.

Also ...... I might add that a tad of trail is good, you do not want to eliminate all trail even in a trike operated at higher speeds as it does help keep it straight. "0" trail would be too "twitchy" or unstable at speed ... much too sensative to rider input ...

... and never ever would one want any "lead" (contact patch in front of steering axis contact point) as that would be like pulling that cart backwards and that caster would want to flip around to "follow" meaning as soon as one steered a hair off center, the handle bars would want to go to full lock.

[OldNick]

OK. I am confused. I thought trail made the wheel stay steady. You are saying it _causes_ head shake and that 0 trail, as in the old tractor, will result in a steady state steering. ??

My?? is because I am not sure if that is what you are saying.

I can maybe see that a 0 trial system would stay put in a circle, because there is no force to straighten it. But in a straight lline I do not get it. Why do all vehicles have trail/caster?

[CrystalPistol]

It's a matter of balance between the right trail to suit the rider. More trail shortens a rider's leverage ... is why as you goe down the road on a trike the trike is pulled left or right easier by bumps, roadway irregularities, etc. encountered by the rear wheels on left or right side.

Zero trail would not dart left or right, not wobble, but then there also would be no tendency of the trike to stay straight, it would take far more attention at speed but there would be near zero effort needed to steer ... and once turned, the rider would have to consciously straighten the steering.

It's just about balance .... trade offs ... a "rakekit" as we are discussing will lessen the trike's inherent tendency to go straight, but in return the rider get's a reduced effort required to steer same.

[Papa Zook]

Just my 0.02.

While agree with the rake kit (it makes steering much lighter and easier to control) I will say that I just changed my tyre from an Avon AV71 front _bike_ (not trike) tyre to a Michelin Pilot Activ _rear_ tyre. I did have a bit of head shake before, even with a damper, and it has gone completely with the tyre change. My next experiment is to actually remove the damper...although I am installing an 8Deg rake kit. (Very LWB Valk trike)

So if there is still some wobble after a rake kit, consider a tyre....more $$$ I know, esp at only a couple of K Miles on your present one.

8 degree rake kit works fine on VTX1800s and Valks. I have used 6s and 8s without a problem.

[OldNick]

hmmm.so in the physics we are on the same page. But would want to _very carefully_ try a 0 trail trike and see if it did not follow road bumps, or even get up an unstable state, certainly without rider input.

SAying that, as I gained experience I noticed tht the last thing I should do was fight headshake: as often as noit that makes it worse

Most of the headshake I have encountered, while in response to road roughness, front or rear axle, I felt were damped oscillations beyond the direct influence of bumps. That would be damped by trail and by my steering damper.

Talking of dampers, I do not reckon one will make much difference under normal steering situations. I can certainly feel my damper if I turn the front wheel rapidly while parked or maneuvring in tight situations, but 99% of corners do not require that steering speed which will make much difference, IMO, and certainly not compared to the sheer force required to fight the trike's tendency to travel ahead.

[CrystalPistol]

If you plot steering stem center line versus tire patch and thusly trail through suspension travel, you'll see that trail diminishes generally when forks are compressed most ... as they would be under heavy braking. If you started with zero trail, you'll be on a dark side of trail when you don't want to be .... I think.

Don't forget, that steering stem axis will stand up as the trike frame drops in front and not in rear. A little trail is a good thing, it aids control. It is easier for a rider to push / pull against trail to steer than it is to react to and control a backwards caster at speed.

Ever let the trike roll backwards a bit quick and steer just a hair???

[OldNick]

Yeah having gone through the throes of working out why a "rake kit" would make steering _easier_, I went past all that on the way:most of it I knew, but not the rake kit thing. To me rake meant trail meant hard steering.

I have roads that I know well for low speed head shake and I will be interested to see how more rake affects it.

Reversing.....surprisingly my Valk does not give much trouble. I have a Neandethal reverse: a Datsun starter motor and ring gear. Apart from sounding horrendous (no sound shielding at all), it rockets me back at up to 8-10 KPH. Steering has not been a problem. Not sure why although my lady is very LWB.