Mr.RevHard,Sounds like you and I are similar? Had an Ultra and 4 Street glides which all, but ,one had the high speed cornering wobbles.I guess you also don’t brake for corners and you have at least Stage 111 converted them. Guess you find it hard to find Harley guys who ride with you and arrive at the same time?We are not talking about some wobbles that scare you! They scare everybody on the road when you just learn to act like you’re on a 1970s Superbike ,nothing is going on and just push through it!I spent many sleepless nights and many fruitless hours chasing after the right Stabiliser,or building them myself,with limited success.
When I upgraded to the M 8 Stage 111+ of course it is faster,but it still tank slapped so hard in a staight line speed test I nearly didn’t come out of it.
I got mad and ripped the whole swing arm out.Ureka, found the swing arm shaft comes undersized from the factory.Ridiculous when you know that the two swivel spherical bearings rely solely on the shaft for alignment and orientation!Built up the shaft machined to press fit the bearings,inserted a 2”x 1/8” stainless flat washer between the swing arm and rubber buffer to increase the squish.Not a wiggle! Now my group Nickname is
Valentino Milwaukee 😄

 

I’m quite the fan of steering dampers. But, make sure you’ve corrected the underlying problems before putting a steering damper band-aid on top of the problem.

My 04 had the same inner bushing/shaft slop mentioned above. Seems an oem defect, as I find it everywhere. Lift the rear of the bike, slacken the belt, and push the swing arm side to side. It should not move at all. With the bushing/shaft slop, it’ll move freely. Fix this slop, and no sway arm brace on the market addresses this flaw, they just band-aid it.

Steering head pre-load. If the steering head is floppy, the front wheel is easily deflected. Harley steering head specs are very loose. You may want to try a tighter setting. But, you don’t want the head so tight it becomes notchy. That creates its own problems.

Handlebars. You need leverage to control the bike. Skinny little buckhorn bars and the like give the rider terrible geometry to control the front end. Don’t know what bars are on this bike, but look at them and ponder a bit.

As for steering head dampers, beware the geometry. There are many out there that I doubt do anything, because of their ineffective geometry.

This would be highly effective::


This would not:

 

Actually the shaft is not undersized, it's right at 0.749-0.750. The bearing spacer holes are oversized.

https://www.hdforums.com/forum/touri...er-bobble.html

Adding preload to the rubber bushings also helps. Did that years ago..

 

Max. Resizing the Shaft solved a problem that haunted me for 5 years! Are you suggesting that I should rather reduce the size of the Shop bought factory spherical bearings inner diameter instead of pointing the finger at Harley who makes the shaft? You’re just being obtuse and deflecting from the root of the reason,why most Harley’s wobble! Guys my Glide is now rock solid and it stays on any line I choose through any corner?

 

Not sure what you mean by being obtuse. They likely spec out both the bearing spacer and shaft and have them built by a supplier. The bearings themselves are standard spherical bearings. In any case they spec the bearing spacers and shaft fit. It's funny but they have a good fit on the OD of the spacer into the bearing but the ID was 0.757. Tranny was about 0.753. I suspect that they also machine the case which is a bit on the loose side also.

 

Everyone is running a steering stabilizer?

 

Everyone will get the feeling that the wobble is coming from the front end even after the Rushmore front strut upgrade.The first advice you will get is change tyres.The next is a steering damper.Then a lower engine stabilizer.I stupidly followed the advice of people who didn’t ride fast enough to really experience it.
Even more stupidly I continued to test and create stabilizers for 4 out of 5 touring bikes I owned.
My message to MrRevHard,who has the capability to strip and resize the rear swing arm shaft,is to ignore the flow of advice to put a band aid fix anywhere,whilst the swingarm shaft allows the unstable back wheel to go
clacking and bouncing off the buffer rubbers.....End of Message!

 

@darren400 Eventually which steering stabilizer did you end up installing? Please do share some details and a picture if possible. Thank u.

 

Not something that a steering damper is going to fix.

Lets start with last time is was completely serviced, and what tires are on the bike (need cdot dates as well).

On the front end,
could be cupped or tires just need to be replace,
fork needed to be rebuilt if not done in 30K, or at least oil changed to thicker fluid,
Wheel bearings may need to be replace,
head seat bearings may need to be cleaned. replace if worn out, and re-greased with correct amount of pre set.
And may be calipers pulled to make sure pistons are not binding that can cause pads to not release cleanly, and even brake fluid flushing both front and rear end before it take out the abs pump.

Now on back end, keep in mind that the motor connects to the trans, has the primary between the two, back of trans connectors to the swing arm that the rear wheel is connected to, and all of this drive line assembly float in the frame via the rubber motor mount up front, and the side rubber mounts to side plates. Hence rear swing arm is not bolted to the frame, but instead side rubber mounts 11, fit in to sockets of side plates 20 that do bolt to the frame.


Rubber mounter mounts up front.


So if everything above is still good, and just say oem fork oil that needs to be changed to thicker fork oil and mounts are about worn out, here is how the corning will play out.
With the thinner factory fork out needed to replaced, as you get into a corner, the front end is going to start to popo up and down, and will cause the front end to start to walk out. Now on the rear with the mounts about shot, you can firm up the rear end so it not popo'g, but since the drive line is floating in the frame, the rear tire (whole drive line in the frame) will cant out to the high side/drive line no longer in line with frame to make matters worse.
Note, if the wheel bearing are shot, and have a lot of lashe to them, then makes matters worse, since not only will you have the rear tire canting out to the high side in the frame, now you have the tires that are cocking on the axle to the high side as well.

Again, mileage of the bike will help, and any records of what has been serviced will help as well.
Tires at 6 years old if factory tires, are due for a change at 6 years since the rubber gets hard/tires go out of round as well, and common practice to replace the sealed bearing and seals during the tire change as well.
Forks with mileage around 30K, due for a rebuild, as well as service the head set bearings, and go with a thicker fork oil that HD uses, since will help with the forks not pogo'g in the corners. Since caliper need to come off to rebuild the forks, great time to check them to make sure that fork oil was changed out every two years, and the pistons are not binding when they are pressed in/don't need to pull the pistons to clean the channels, or replace the seals and dust boots.
Rubber mounts at 6 years old, even with say only 20K on the bike, replace them, and double check to make sure axle nuts are still to torque as well.

_________________________
Now back to steering dampener, and it not what you think in regards to that.
If bike starts to wobble at higher speeds (over 80km)/suspension is set up correctly to start with, going in a straight lime, then the problem is front end lift that will cause the front end to get light to cause the front end wobble (don't confuse front end steering wobble, with back end wobble when the rubber mounts are about shot and rear end of drive line/rear tire is not staying in line with frame).

The solution to the problem of front end steering wobble is everything else is fine, is fork fangs (will not just be plug and play on your later bike), that work like a steering damper over 20mh (and that you don't have to fight the steering at low speeds), but better yet, the air up them pulls the front end back down as well. The fact that help with wind coming under the fairing to cause head buffering, it just an added feature.


And yes, the difference of the bike tracking/front end staying glued to the line in the lane at higher speeds, without fangs, then with fangs, is beyond night and day. Pre-fangs on my touring bike, scary to pull your hands off the bars at over 70mph. Now with fangs, take my hand off the bars at over 100mph, and bike just holds its line in the line like it was on rails. Why, the fangs help to pull the front end back down, instead of lifiting up, while keeps the front end planted solid. And you only have a street glide, and on touring bike with back seat, that the wind off the back seat is pulling the front end up more, even bigger difference as well.

And back to where we started, with heaver fork oil in the forks to slow down the dampening/rebound so it not popo'g, and now the added down force of the front end from the fangs in the corner, even makes a difference here to keep the front end planted and tracking true.

The only other item I can add, but will be sacrilege for most, but street glide runs 12" back shocks to give the back end a low rider look, while the ultra's run 13" back shocks, to give more rear suspension so your not bottoming out the rear every hard bump, and makes the front end/rear end feel more connected in the corners as well.
Hence that whole style over function thing that that goes on with the bikes, and even more disconnect when you go with large front rim/tire on the bike to raise the front end even higher.

 

When Harley added the top front stabilizer link, it helped a lot, what Harley forgot to add is a rear upper stabilizer, which you can get from Alloy Art.