Steering intermittent resistance

firium

Registered user
Joined
Sep 20, 2021
Messages
7
Reaction score
0
Location
Chepstow, Wales
Hi guys,

I'm having the strangest issue with my GS and was hoping that someone would be able to help with the diagnosis? I've searched here and elsewhere and not yet found any other reports of this.

At low speed, when tying to take the steering past ~1 O clock to the right, ocasionally the handlebars will resist being turned. If this happens, the bars can be turned left. Further pressure to the right will result in a click feeling (no sound as far as I've noticed) and the bars will turn freely again. This only happens now and again, on my 45 minute commute maybe 2 or 3 times. I cannot seem to reproduce it when stationary. The issue seems to clear either when I push through the resistence, or when I stop.

I've checked all the lines from the bars and everything seems to be where it should be. The steering lock was my next guess, but I've not been able to confirm it as the cause - the lock mechanism seems to be behaving normally. Could this be down to a bearing issue? It certainly doesn't present like any bearing failure I've seen before, the steering feels smooth and notch free otherwise.

I was wondering if anyone has come across this before and may be able to point me in the right direction regarding a fix?

Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks :thumb2
 
Sounds like the head bearings. Depends on the age of your GS and or if there's any grease left in your head bearings or the bike has a rough life. Not got my bike out the garage for donkeys, but someone will give the the info to check them out in a min. Changed the bearings on the XT, not a difficult job.
 
OK,

Lets start with some basics.

Basted on your vague diagnosis , we have approximately 120 model variants on the std hexhead to consider

And you could double that if it was a later hexhead ..

if you add the model year to your initial diagnoses we could get it to 1 in 24 or 12 depending on model

If by some magic you also know the month of manufacture we can get it to 1 in 1

Sorry if it seems unhelpful,

but it's like going to the doctor and saying my leg hurts..... ;)
 
Sounds like a bearing is badly worn to be honest !

I would be checking this out before riding it anywhere!

If you can;t get it past that restriction when you need to without phaffing about

It could end badly!
 
Have you put your bike on its centre stand, put weight on the rear seat to rock it back, and then moved the steering with the front wheel off the ground? Same ??
 
Thank you for the quick responses chaps! Absolutely, it will stay in the garage until this is fixed. Even as is I've nearly dropped it twice :eek:

Good point about the model - it's an '08 plate 2008 R1200GS (non-adventure), the V5 states month of registration as March, not sure on a more exact manufacture date. I've had it for over 5 years, I wouldn't say it's had a hard life - with me it's been used only on the road and is garaged - but it is over 52k miles now so no spring chicken.

Prosthetic arm - that would be a no :yelrotflm

My partner has weighted the rear on the centre stand to lift the front wheel - as with when stationary the steering turns smoothly and freely.

Sounds like it may be time for a bearing replacement then. Glad to hear it's not too hard a job :)
 
No steering damper I don't believe. The bike's unmodified - am I correct in thinking that an '08 came without one from factory?
 
firium said:
My partner has weighted the rear on the centre stand to lift the front wheel - as with when stationary the steering turns smoothly and freely.

Sounds like it may be time for a bearing replacement then. Glad to hear it's not too hard a job :)
Click to expand...


If it was a head bearing you would feel it here. (and normally it wouldn't be at one o'clock it would be at bang on 12 o clock). So I'm not so sure.

Re-examine cables and cable routes.

Tyres? Badly squared off ? Sometimes the right side of a tyre gets more squared off than the left because of road camber and that we drive on the left (right side of tyre works harder). If what you feel is only when riding, is it a squared off front and youre trying to get over the knuckle of that square? (why you feel in one way in particular?).
 
I had considered tyres, however I've ruled them out for a couple of reasons.

It's running tourance nexts which are around 1000 miles old - fitted 4 months back. Neither look particularly worn, the rear has very early signs of squaring (most of my commute is motorway) and I can't see any obvious defects in the tyres' structure.

The main reason however is that this feels very 'mechanical'. The click when the resistence releases feels like something giving way suddenly and is tied to the pressure I put through the bar. The tyre will have in some instances rotated more than once before this happens. Aside from this, the bike is riding very much normally, so nothing wayward when at higher speed which I would expect if the tyres were to blame.

I absolutely agree that this seems unusual for a bearing failure. There is no courseness, I'm struggling to consitently reproduce it (other than just riding for 30 mins!) and there is no play in the bearings that I can detect. In fact, last months MOT gave it a clean bill of health :cool:

I will go over the cables again and see if there's anything that looks like it could move to obstruct when being ridden. I'm also going to take another look at the steering lock mechanism before I go messing about with the bearings :D
 
firium said:
. I'm also going to take another look at the steering lock mechanism before I go messing about with the bearings :D
Click to expand...

Put your hand underneath the ignition/steering lock unit and try forcibly moving the whole unit. It's not unknown for the security bolts to lose some tightness and the unit can catch on the steering lock bracket on the frame.
 
Santa-2512 said:
OK,

Lets start with some basics.

Basted on your vague diagnosis , we have approximately 120 model variants on the std hexhead to consider

And you could double that if it was a later hexhead ..

if you add the model year to your initial diagnoses we could get it to 1 in 24 or 12 depending on model

If by some magic you also know the month of manufacture we can get it to 1 in 1

Sorry if it seems unhelpful,

but it's like going to the doctor and saying my leg hurts..... ;)
Click to expand...



My leg hurts.......should i go to the doctor?
 
Like everyone else, steering bearings seen an obvious culprit. Or is it your pathetic arm? Oh hang on, we ruled that out

As Giles says, 'nominally' pitted string bearings are notched just about dead centre (12 o'clock) not 1 o'clock....

The other things are the spherical bearings at the top of each station in the top yoke and then of course the ball joint. In all cases it sounds like whatever it is, its fooked.

And as per the Doc above, I really wouldn't ride it until you found the cause.

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk
 
I can assure you that unlike the rest of me, my right arm is quite well excercised :D

I have had a good go at the ignition module and it doesn't appear to be loose. Looking at the profile of the steering lock and how it engages, it looks like it could well be the culprit, though I've not yet been able to reliably reproduce to confirm. I'll also keep looking at the cables to see if anything jumps out. If those are a no-go then I'll take a look at the bearings next.

I also wanted to say a big thank you to everyone for input on this. Once this is resolved I'll be sure to post here again should anyone else finds themselves with the same problem :thumb2
 
firium said:
I can assure you that unlike the rest of me, my right arm is quite well excercised :D

I have had a good go at the ignition module and it doesn't appear to be loose. Looking at the profile of the steering lock and how it engages, it looks like it could well be the culprit, though I've not yet been able to reliably reproduce to confirm. I'll also keep looking at the cables to see if anything jumps out. If those are a no-go then I'll take a look at the bearings next.

I also wanted to say a big thank you to everyone for input on this. Once this is resolved I'll be sure to post here again should anyone else finds themselves with the same problem :thumb2
Click to expand...
Is there any chance some scroats tried to steal it at some point, damaging the steering lock? I'm guessing this will have been a 'recent' thing if you're just noticing the problem?

Glad you're arm it's ok

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Keyless Steering Lock Not Working
Replies
6
Views
362
trebor
trebor
Centre Stand Lock
Replies
11
Views
1,040
WRG1970
jc_bromley
Fuel gauge behaviour, new Owner Question
Replies
4
Views
212
jc_bromley
jc_bromley
Bad engine noise!
2 3
Replies
59
Views
2,614
crumbles
crumbles
2009 GS Front engine cover removal tool?
Replies
3
Views
515
Mistacat
Mistacat


Back
Top Bottom