Help, The front end of my 2002 Baja is about to vibrate me off the bike at speeds above 45 mph. I had green slime fix-a-flat in the tires and took it out because, I thought it was causing a out-of-balance in the tires. But the problem still exists. Somebody told me it could be the front end toe-out on the alignment. They said to toe-in the front end slightly should resolve it. Anybody have the same problem or a fix?[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

 

The vibrating is more than likely a balance issue - either a tire or maybe a bent rim, especially if it was fine at first and then started later.

Toe is very sensetive for the DS, and needs to be set precisely for proper handling, but should not cause vibration. If toe was so out of wack to cause vibration, it would also be causing poor handling at all speeds.

Try and get somebody to trade you wheels for a quick ride and see if its gone then. While you have the wheels off, check the spindels for play to see if the bearings have been damaged.

 

Hey thanks for the input. I will check the toe-in toe-out tonight and give it a try. I will also switch rims with my other DS650 and see if it might be a rim or tire. The rims and front end is straight. The bike only has 20 or 30 hours on it, so it is pretty tight.

Anybody else have any recommendations?

 

Be sure to measure toe with you on the seat. Ideally for yellow DS's you want 1/8" toe-out, I assume it would be the same for the Bajas too. Any amount of toe-in beyond neutral will cause the steering to be overly sensetive.
My bike came 1/2" toe-out from the factory! Talk about wierd handling - it sucked!

hey - whcih nerfs you like best - the AC or graydon?

 

Hey Hightower, Thanks for the input. I am going to do some adjustments tonight. As far as the nerf bars, the AC Racing were cheaper and seem to fit better. I would buy them again. They are also not as wide as the Graydon's. The AC seem to slant more. I did have to cut off the foot peg extensions on the Baja to make them fit (no biggie). But they fit better on the foot pegs and do not obstruct the foot shift side. Later

 

Nothing helped, still got huge shimmy at 45+ mph. I changed the toe from toe-in to toe-out several times and that did not help. I then changed tires with my other DS650 and that did not help. I checked the ball joints and everything else and nothing seems to be wrong. Any suggestions??

 

front wheel bearings? weird....???

 

My front end would feel like it was shaking when my axle was bent. It was actually the whole quad shimmying, but you could really feel it in the handlebars.

 

I was just gonna say, i think your checking the wrong end of the bike.

To feel a big shimmy in the bars you are gonna look at somthing noticably wrong or bent, such as the rear axel or rim.

 

Cool, Thanks, I will start checking the rear end. I will switch the tires and check the axle.