I am sick of seeing the same old couple of stories kicking around and being regurgitated rerpeatedly so I am starting a new topic an what has probably been dealt with before. Touring Harleys do have a problem with flexing and "shimmying" in rough bends and corners particularly when loaded but deasth wobble - really???
I just threw this up on Facebook in response to yet another bit of scare mongering.
For a death wobble to occur something has to be very wrong. I also note its the same stories all the time that are being regurgitated. Yes there is a problem but its not that bad as HD remains the best selling touring bike in many parts of the world by a wide margin. I have a 2013 Ultra with 15000km on the clock. I purchased it at 4600km. The first thing I noticed was a shimmy when riding round a bumpy bend which was disconcerting, as was the bikes tendency to follow ridges in the asphalt and its tendency to dive badly under front brakes. I did the following which at every point improved the bikes handling and manners. 1. Put some decent heavy duty front fork oil in. 2. Put an Alloy Art rear engine stabiliser in. 3. Put air shocks in with decent damping. 4. Experimented with tyre pressure which had a major effect. 4. Ditched the Rear Dunlop and fitted a Michelin Commander II which has a symmetrical tread profile. Believe it or not the shocks and rear tyre and pressure had the most effect but everything played a part. Insufficient shockie damping changes the bikes geometry through a bumpy bend as the suspension moves more than it should.. The Dunlops don't have a symmetrical tread shape so as you ride up on the left or right shoulder while cornering the bike destabilises when the shoulders flatten and then return to shape on bumps or ridges. Tyre pressure in the rear dunlop is CRITICAL. Note I raised the rear suspension 1 inch temporarily while I was fooling around and it majorly destabilsed the bike causing a steering wobble at around 60kph if you took you hands off the bars. After all the work and mods I have gone from being apprehensive when cornering on our rural roads to being totally confident weighing 650kg with pillion and fully loaded. You cannot upset the bikes handling now no matter what you do. Biggest problem is cornering hard is really fun now but the bike won't lean far enough before scraping hardware - it is a tourer so I'll happily put up with it.
I reckon its pretty incredible that I have a big barge of a touring bike that now has nimble handling and sure-footedness at its weight limit, all for a few hundred dollars.
This is the FB link
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=death%20wobble
This is where the link goes in case it doesn't work.
http://unqexp.com/some-harley-motorcycles-plagued-by-death-wobble-video/
It's old info being rehashed. These incidents have been rehashed ad-nauseum for years and confuse a lot of people.
I just hate sensationalism.
