Hi, I have a 2001 road king and I have the headlight out of it and I found what looks like a zerk fitting that has never been greased on the fork stem, I found no mention of it in my Clymers manual and nothing in my useless owners manual either, I'm very tempted to grease it but I thought maybe i should ask here first.
--Thanks--

[IMG]local://upfiles/22052/E1B583F397C349ACA85E865BCE65A876.jpg[/IMG]

 

Welcome to the forums. The baggers have a grease zerk fitting in the fork to grease the steering head bearing. I changed mine out to a 90 degree fitting so I don't have to take stuff apart and finagle to get at it, but I have a EGC with a fairing. You need to grease it every 10k miles and it takes a lot of pumps on the grease gun the first time. I use regular marine grease, others use the HD stuff.

 

My 02 RK is the same. Please keep me posted on your findings.

 

If you turn the bars to full lock right you will be able to access the fitting on the left side of the steering headas well. You don't need to remove the headlight on the RoadKing. It's there to lube the steering head bearings. It gets grease @ 1000 miles, 10,000 and every 10,000 thereafter until 50,000 then the manual says "disassemble inspect and regrease the bearings.

 

If you fill it until you see grease ooozing out of the lower bearing (as the manual suggests), you will probably regret it. As temperatures increase, the grease will tend to liquify and it will drip on your front fender among other places. The steering head holds a bunch of grease if you fill it - un-neccessary, imho. Check the steering head bearings when you have it off the floor and only grease them when they need it. 4-5 pumps.

 

Use a good quality synthetic grease and this shouldn't happen. I lubed mine till it came out the bottom and have had no problem.

 

Chances are if you only give 4 or 5 pumps on the grease gun the grease is not even getting to the bearings only being deposited into the neck. YeaI suppose after a number of years those 4 or 5 pumps will add up and eventually you will get grease to the bearings. Unless you see grease coming out, you have no way of knowing that the bearings are recieving any grease at all.............BG

 

What he said.

 

Thanks, for the advice I just bought the bike last summer and I'm still new to some of it, it definately looks like it was never greased before, so I'll give it the grease gun. Are there any other zerks that are kind of easy to get at that I should know about too ?? the Clymers manual really doesn't go into that at all.

 

Clymer is worthless. Buy the factory service manual. A parts manual comes in handy also.