Hi everybody!
I've been doing my 15k service and came to the adjustment of the steering bearings on the Dyna Wide Glide, but got some weird results on the fall away test. Looking front on at the bike I get about 3-4 inches travel on the Left before fall away but on the Right I get about half an inch of travel before fall away, maybe less. I tightened up the adjuster just to see what would happen and I do get it to a point where there's about 1 inch of travel on the Right before fall away but then the Left has something like 5-6 inches of travel before fall away. It's like it's all way off centre.

This leads me to believe that perhaps my garage floor isn't flat

That being said I can sort-of-maybe-perhaps feel a bit of a 'dead zone' near the centre - the steering comes in from the Left and then falls away into the centre where it catches it again. I'm thinking of just changing the bearings to be on the safe side but what's the definitive way of knowing that a bearing is shot?

Thanks for any advice! Hope it's sunny and you're all out riding today.

 

That "dead zone" sounds like the bearings (and races) might have a flat spot in them. Since the bearings don't rotate completely, they hit at the same spot every time you go past center.

On my Softail Springer (Springers are notoriously hard on neck bearings), I noticed the wear most when slowing to a stop. As I decelerated, the bike would want to wander side to side. It'd make you look like you don't know how to ride, or were drunk! LoL... It would get worse as time went on. If left to go long enough, you could feel the "clunk" as you passed center. I believe the wandering while slowing was due to that "flat spot" over-adjusting for the small movements I was trying to make.

May not be your issue, but that is what I noted as my neck bearings worsened until I addressed them. Hope it helps.

 

You need to look at the bearings, the grease may just be dried up.

In my opinion, adjusting steering head bearings without inspecting/packing them with grease first is a crapshoot.

 

thanks for the advice guys. I think I need to get them out anyways and if I'm stripping the bike that much then go figure I should stick some new ones in there. The roads round here are super potholey so if they're shot it might've been that.

 

This^^^
And I've never had much luck with the voodoo fall-away method.
I always found that if I go with correct torque values after cleaning and repacking bearings, everything works and feels correct on the road.
Unless I have a problem, during the winter I just pull the whole front end apart, clean, grease, replace oil and seals in forks. Include wheel bearing and brake service, assembly, and torque.

 

After only 15K you have possible knackered neck bearings? That doesn't seem good.

To do the fall away have you removed all the cables and anything else that can influence the steering? The clutch cable on its own make a huge difference.