I copied and pasted these from another forum. They are talking about a bike, not a trike.
It continues to rain, so after work I followed Fred's demonstration of a short cut to check the steering head top nut to see if it was loose as Hairball noticed with his. I marked the nut and stem before applying torque and set the torque wrench to its setting where it alerts you as you approach the target torque and beeps when you are there. At 68 foot pounds of torque the top nut began to move and by the time I hit the specification(76ft#) it had moved only about 6 degrees of rotation. Now this is only the top nut and I did not tear down to the bearing preload adjustment as my strong clinical hunch is that the tires are the source of the decel wobble in this case. If it had been goose loose, I would have gotten a helper to hold the bottom end of the stem while I checked and re-set the bearing preload. I did order the test pins and Traxxion tie rod today, but that is likely a future project.
No you don't have to remove the front shock, however access is much easier with it out. If it turns when you torque the top nut then you'll need a helper and a long extension with a wobble adapter and a 22mm socket to hold the bottom while someone else torques the top. It isn't an easy task, and so you really need 2 people.
Did an air filter change and while I had it apart I figured I might as well check the steering stem bolt. I started out at the required 76 ft lbs. got almost a full rotation befor it started getting resistance then I started applying pretty good pressure and got to a point where I was afraid I would strip the threads so I backed it Down to 50 ft. Lbs. till I got the click from my torque wrench and started moving up from there to 60 to 70 when I got to 70 I was still afraid of stripping the threads so I when back down to 60 and the nut still moved after already being at 60 ft lbs and getting the click from my wrench. Is this normal for that nut.
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#2 · Nov 23, 2019 (Edited)
The stem itself can rotate when you're torquing the top bridge nut if you don't find a way to put a wrench or socket on the bolt on the bottom side of it to keep it from turning. This is probably what happened when you were trying to torque it. You can see in the photo I posted the manual shows holding it from the bottom while adjusting the bearings. Same thing needs to be done when torquing the top nut.
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