Ontario has some of the highest insurance premiums for motorcycles I have ever seen, and I pay about 800/yr.

 

I don't have rear pegs either but only because where I live the ppl I know ask me for rides and I now got an excuse to be like "Sorry, no can do"
Does look better without em though.

 

Hi guys!

I've finally got insurance and everything is good to go and already took the bike out for three shorts ride already and it's super fun!

I only have one concern so far, I was riding today about 10km, and opened up in first/second from 0-70kmh and noticed that on both gears, even third around 80kmh there is some occasional non-periodic wobble, any ideas what it might be? I think if the wheels were not balanced the wobble would be more periodic and noticeable... I checked the wheels on stands and the front wheel does not spin freely... Which maybe a bearing issue or a brake issue... If anyone might know? If anything I plan on taking the bike in to a shop to get checked out regardless, just wanted to take it in near the end of the season...

Thanks!

 

Could be an improperly balanced wheel, could be bearings, and could be "grabby" brakes, due to a caliper piston not moving freely, could be warped rotors... the list goes on!
Is this coming from the front, rear, or is it hard to tell? Does this only happen under hard acceleration?

Usually when your bearings are going, there's a grinding or "clickety-clack" sound from the wheel, and often times you can feel that through the bars (or the pegs, with rear bearings.) With the bike up on a front stand, you can try to wiggle the wheel around, to see if there is any motion at all, other than just rotating on the axle.

When the wobble occurs, if you lightly pull the brake lever while maintaining the speed where this occurs, does it have any affect on the intensity, or characteristics of the shaking?
The thing is, I'm not saying it couldn't be brakes, but if it were, it would seem that you would encounter this issue with much more regularity, and application of the brakes would either quell, or exacerbate the problem.

One thing to consider, is, if this is happening when you're "hammering it", it could be a little head shake from the front end becoming light under acceleration... maybe the intermittency here, is due to sometimes you having more of your weight forward-biased, and sometimes not.

Bottom line: it's very hard to diagnose something without being there, and riding the bike, and narrowing down something that's intermittent is a difficulty all on its own - the intermittent nature might be because the issue is a product of a combination of things... this is feasible, if there's a lot of un-done maintenance items stacking up.


Start with what you know: the front wheel doesn't spin freely, but it should...

1) Put the front wheel up. Unbolt the calipers, and clean them well with brake cleaner (while you're doing this, just clean EVERYTHING!) Put something close to the thickness of the rotor in between the pads and very, very carefully and slowly pull the brake lever, and then try to manually push the pistons back in... try to ascertain if the pistons are moving easily, or are binding.

2) Of course, with the calipers unbolted from the fork sliders, if the wheel moves freely then, you've found out why it wasn't before. While they are still off, rotate the wheel and look at the rotors, see if you can detect any warpage... you could also use a straigt-edge on the rotor surfaces.

3) Try wiggling the rim in all different directions - see if you can find any "play" in the wheel. Remove the wheel and rotate the inner race of the bearings with your fingers, and see if it's smooth, and easy to turn.

Good luck!

 

-At those km:s, i`d really not be surprised if the front wheel bearings would be totally shot, mine were. They`re super easy to change yourself too. If it`s a brake issue it`s easily checked by removing the calipers and turning the wheel. One thing could be an old tire. My front tire was really old and had started to crack a bit from the sides, but there still was enough tread left to drive, although I grew a bit weary of it in rain. I tend to be super careful in rain even with good tires so I decided to change it, the effect was unbelievable! Felt like a whole another bike, the old tire was rock solid and bounced in tight lean turns, the new one is silky smooth. Got a Michelin Pilot Road 1, the shop had one left in the shelf so I got a good bargain off of it.

EDIT: ach, JNS was faster... but yeah, if you spin the wheel without the brake calipers and hear a dragging or "rolling" type of sound, it`s your bearings. They`re a few tenners a set so it`s one of those "since it`s apart already, why not" -jobs...

EDIT2: looking at the pics, seems your front tire is in pretty good nick so I`d focus on the brakes/bearings first...

 

 

Thanks guys! You guys are awesome!

I rode the bike back to my house after I posted, and didn't notice the wobble, under the same acceleration, so it hard to tell what it was. I am a novice rider so it's difficult to say what I should be feeling while riding since my only experience comes from the training course where I didn't ride faster than 30kmh... Could have been also the road and the wind, but the wind had a different feel...

I checked the wheels, doesn't seem like bearings are a problem, I'll have the bike up on the stands this weekend to check out the brakes, will also take it for another spin. Hopefully everything is fine, hard to say, I'm not riding in windless, perfect flat roads so there's environmental effects as well

Over all its super fun riding, for a beginner like me, trying to take it easy, got enough people telling me they'd kill me if I crash...

On a secondary note, due to the poor condition of the plastics I've decided to street fighter the bike (sorry JNS ! ), already got the LSL headlight, clamps and Kosovo gauge on the way, so the whole front is coming off. I took off the main side fairings and put some sliders on, also added 4 aluminum tabs to hold the rear fairings where the side fairings would normally do the job... Photos to come! Will keep you guys updated...

Thank you!!

 

Fighter, noooooooo!

your bike, you decide, it's just that I've seen so many bodge jobs that the whole concept gives me goosebumps... A hint: try to keep the riding position so that you're not leaning onto the bars too much, I had a 125cc fighter (that the PO mainly built) and it had a dulicrously wide Dice T6 bar that I had to lean on, the pose made my wrists twist cause the bar was not only wide, it was fairly straight, not a pleasant position to be in...

Back to the noise, if you're not sure about where it's coming from and it's only audible on hard acceleration it's most likely your chain. Although that shouldn't cause any kind of wobble...

As JNS said we're basically just shooting in the dark without seeing the bike, go through it bit by bit and you'll eventually find it. If you're not familiar with bikes or mecanical stuff in general it's a very good idea to buy yourself a Haynes/Clymer etc workshop manual, they have all the pictures, torque specs and valuable hints on how to take stuff apart/ back together. There is a link somewhere in this site for the original Honda repair shop manual that you can download, I've printed mine so i can keep it in a folder in the garage but it's something like 240 pages so you'd need a laser printer to do that.

 

+1.... a fighter'd F2 isn't a great look (unless you go all out).

My F2 had no plastics at all when I got it... $100 and 2 weeks of looking (locally) and I had a set of beat-up plastics... 2 Sundays and $30 of spray paint and the bike looks very decent... not perfect but at 10 feet away or 30+ km/hr it looks great.

 

@ Mattson : I do have the owners manual and the clymer manual, but I still have to better diagnose the issue, which will be done on the weekend. I thought about keeping the bike in stock, but it does desperately need new plastics since most of the front cowl is barely held together, and rear fairings have the connecting tabs broken (at the rear where they snap into the piece above the brake light). I did not want to risk getting new chinese plastics and dealing with them, and since I coveted a street fighter originally, I don't mind doing the conversion. keep in mind, this is my first and only bike, so the heavy stuff like frame / engine paint and tail chop would have to wait until the winter (the 11 months of it here in Canada....). Anyway hopefully I'll have some time this weekend to ride around figure out what may be the issue.

@ Bently yes that is plan, it will take a while but for now the main parts on the way are the new headlight and gauge so i can drop that front cowl. note that I don't think I can do a full fighter unless I have a more 'street legal' bike with which i'd be able to do my full license test here in ontario (M class) but I have about 4.5 years left before I'm out of time, maybe i'll get to pick up a 600RR or f4i that can pass the inspection at the DMV, as I heard they are sticklers for stuff like chain guards / lighting system... BS but what can you do?

will post pics once conversion starts!