Well guys, I dumped the bike this morning. I drove through the grass to get around a car parked in the driveway and then when I went to stop at the end of the driveway the morning dew that collected on the tire was enough to make it lock and slip out from under me. I banged up my knee a little and ruined my new pair of shoes, but pretty much fine. The only major thing with the bike is that the handle bars are now askew.
I'm a little short on the technical terms for the motor cycle parts so forgive me. The part that connects the handle bar to the flat metal that contains the indicator lights seems to be damaged or knocked out of place. These small rods seem to be rubber filled and it looks like I can adjust that with the nut on the bottom, but I'm not sure with it being rubber filled. Also I'm guessing I'll have to adjust the part that actually connects to the handle bar. It looks like the top bolts(?) are round on the top. Are those just covers or is there a special tool to loosen them?
If you guys have any tips on the best way to readjust these things it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
The round tops you see are inserts that remove with a small flat blade screwdriver. You will see the Allen head screws underneath. They are metric, of course, so you will need a metric Allen wrench to loosen them.
Good luck.
Sorry to hear of your mishap.....
Sounds as if you can simply loosen the allen bolts on the risers holding the handlebar and realign things. Get a helper to hold the front tire between their knee's when you get it loosened to help get it aligned again.
If, for whatever reason, you do decide to loosen the handlebar clamps, that hold the bar to the top of the risers, first cover your tank with a soft clean old towel. Loose handlebars are awkward and have a nasty tendency to drop -fast- , so to avoid dings or scratches to your tank...cover it up.
Also be very careful to properly torque to riser clamp bolts. Its surprisingly light and the clamp bolts break easily. Check a service manual the torque is very small.
Yep and people have different ways of tighten too. My way is to snug one side down and tighten the other to the torque specs found in one of the manuals I read and I learned the hard way also that they will not both touch either they will break first :shock:
I agree with the above statements completely!
I usually hand tighten the top side first til it almost touches or will hold the bar upright without fear of falling, then torque the bottom down to specs and then check top for torque specs.
Thanks for the advice guys. Once I figured out the the covers on allen bolts were just small inserts everything went fine. I loosened up one of the bolts on the messed up riser and the bars popped back into place. I retightened the bolt up and its much nicer now. :-D