On my first ride of the year about a month ago, I felt like my bike wasnt right. There was a severe knocking vibration that would occur when coming to a stop(clutch in or out, didnt matter). When I got the bike home I did a once over and discovered my steering head nut completely loose. I also happened to discover my throttle cable was completely loose too with about a half inch turn before anything happened. Shame on me for not noticing any of this sooner, but I guess I got used to it loosening up over the last season.

Anyway, I torqued up the steering head nut to I think around 85lbs as per the manual(or whatever it stated). After I did that I adjusted the forks to account for them being at the correct height above the top of the triple tree. I re-torqued the 4 triple tree bolts to spec in the manual.

I hadnt ridden much since that first ride since we have basically gotten a month of rain here in NJ.

This past weekend I went out for a perfect day of riding finally and discovered that starting around 50mph I got a vibration in the front end. As I sped up it got progressively worse and around 80mph+ my eyes were literally vibrating in my sockets making my vision blurry.

This was a new experience for me and I was wondering what could contribute to this scenario?

 

I'm not sure what year/model/front end you have, but on my 2000 narrow glide there is no torque spec for the steering nut, there's a procedure that's basically about setting by feel. I know you said 85lbs might not be what you actually torqued it to (whatever the manual said)... I think if I torqued mine to 85lbs, I wouldn't be able to move the forks at all! Some front ends (not mine) have an adjuster separate from the top nut. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong (mine works differently), but I think you can tighten the top all you like, but the actual bearing adjustment won't change if you aren't turning the star nut, which is the adjuster.

I apologise if none of this info applies to your bike...

 

2013 FXDF(in my signature). Youre talking about setting the fallaway, thats different but also something I set a while ago. The steering nut absolutely has a torque setting somewhere that high on my bike stated in my manual, and I used a torque wrench to set it(along with the triple tree bolts). I also thought it was high but the steering still moves quite freely.

 

Okay, gotcha... Yeah, on mine there's only one bolt that does everything up top (and a pinch bolt). Annoyingly, when using the mobile site from a phone, signatures don't show up.

 

Check for a lump in the front tire. Everything else want wrong, why not the tire.

 

Brand new tires from last season, pressure is perfect.

My thoughts for the front vibration is that it could be an alignment issue? If one fork tube is just a hair lower in the triple tree, could that create a situation like this?

 

If the steering stem nut came loose , you need to do the fall away. While you are at it, go a little on the snug side for the bearings and see if the bearings feel notchy. If so you'll need to replace the steering bearings and races.

Early Dynas use a really crappy way to set bearing preload, There is only one nut (bolt actually) on the steering stem to set bearing preload, so did any bike that uses the narrow glide front ends (Sporties and some FXRs come to mind).

 

This past weekend I ended up loosening and re-torquing every bolt on the front end. I came to find one of the 2 front axle pinch bolts was hand loose. I ended up torquing it back up to spec, but I didnt get a chance to ride it after doing so. Im hoping that was the culprit of the really weird vibration.

 

front end trees might be in a bind
I'm pretty sure that you need to loosen lower tree pinch bolts then torque top nut

I don't have a manual with me but there is some sequence to tightening it all down so it does not bind

some one will clarifiy what im trying to say

 

Yeah, that's what I did once I loosened everything again. Upper tree bolts, torque top but, then did the lower tree bolts.