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Steering head bearings

Dswartz

Active Member
I'm still relatively new to the Harley community. I made the decision before I ever purchased the bike to do as much of the maintenance myself as possible. I believe you understand more about your machine that way. Although I have done an awful lot of tinkering on my bike I am getting ready for the 20,000 mile service which means a steering head adjustment. I've never messed with steering bearings and dont know why I'm nervous about it. I was wondering if anybody had any tips for measuring the fall away. The manual said to put some kind of pointer on the fender and reference it with another point to measure the fallaway distance. Anybody have a slick way to do this? I just want to make sure I am measuring properly because I know this is a very important area. The bike is an '02 Superglide
 
On level concrete, with bike on frame lift with wheels off ground. I then take my clutch and throttle cables off, (a pain but it won't fall true other wise, least on mine it won't).

I put my front wheel as straight as possible by eyeing it in.

I put a chair in front of front tire and put a small dowel, or pencil or something like that on the chair with a 5 to 10 lb weight on it so it does not move. I move the chair and dowel so it is pointing directly at the center of the tire.

Then test the fall a way per manual. Adjust bearings if needed per manual.
 
It doesn't get simpler or slicker than that!:small3d028: Having the stiff clutch cable free is a must.
 
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It's also a good idea to remove the quick disconnect windshields as well when doing the fall away test.
 
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