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[JCZ]

If you're having this problem please do what ever it takes to get it corrected.  A lot of guesses on this and other forums as to what causes this problem and there may well be more than one contributing factor. 

I think the tolerances on the neck bearings (the fall away) may have something to do with it.  My guess is that after putting miles on the bike (from the first thousand miles to many thousand miles later) that the bearings race seat down just a bit further, allowing more "slop" in the neck bearings.  The dealership may tell you that the fall away test is within factory specs.  However, I know of two members on this forum that had this problem and after taking it to several different dealerships, insisted that they tighten the neck just a tad bit more and the problem went away for both of them.  In short, a "loose" factory spec may be just a tad to loose, in my humble opinion.  Might want to consider the tighter side of that factory spec.


Take a look at this very unusual video.......   

[ultra13]

Saw this on fb last week.  That is freakin scary! Didn't look like the poor guy could do anything about it... Does anyone that has had this have a possible (although prob. not a for sure fix) reaction if this happens?  More throttle...More braking...stand up on floor boards???

[2soaper]

Good reminder to wear your leather:  https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6af_1498833301

[coloradotom]

Saw this on fb last week.  That is freakin scary! Didn't look like the poor guy could do anything about it... Does anyone that has had this have a possible (although prob. not a for sure fix) reaction if this happens?  More throttle...More braking...stand up on floor boards???

Easier said than done but - hit the throttle (not hold it open, just for a little bit to transfer the weight off the front) and light grip on the bars. Once its settled down, pull over and dispose of underwear.

It you hit the brakes or have a death grip on the bars while in this, you're done for.

[JCZ]

I experienced this to a much less degree than this poor guy.....a number of years back.  I would twist the throttle and at the same time feather the rear brake (kind of pull the slack out of the drive train/suspension). 

When they changed the frames in 09 that went a long way towards minamizing it however, it certainly hasn't stopped it completly.  The later model (after 09) Road Glides continued to have the problem the first few years of the new frame style but I've not saw much on here in the past few years even with the Road Glides.  Now it seems to be happening less and less with the later model year bikes. 

[Road Dad]

When I doubt add throttle. It might not fix the problem but it will end the suspense 

[moscooter]

 
I've had it happen one time on a Harley,  and I believe it occurred due to braking excessive speed and going into a curve at the same time.  Getting off of the brakes is mandatory and that itself will allow a little extra speed.  Thus,  I believe (maintaining "even" throttle is "key")..........Don't add throttle but also don't cut throttle............Let the bars swing as they will and it should moderate and cease to be a problem.

If you do a few retakes of the video shown,  it sure looks to me like he must have nailed the rear brakes for it to do a 180 turnaround as quickly as it did when it threw him off.

[FLSTFI Dave]

I experienced this to a much less degree than this poor guy.....a number of years back.  I would twist the throttle and at the same time feather the rear brake (kind of pull the slack out of the drive train/suspension). 

When they changed the frames in 09 that went a long way towards minamizing it however, it certainly hasn't stopped it completly.  The later model (after 09) Road Glides continued to have the problem the first few years of the new frame style but I've not saw much on here in the past few years even with the Road Glides.  Now it seems to be happening less and less with the later model year bikes. 

With the road glide 09 and later it was almost always the neck bearing.  Had the issue with my 09 SERG.  Tightened the neck and it went away.  After a later service it came back, that service called for the neck bearing test.  I pulled out of dealership and was back in less than three miles and told them to check my neck bearing and tighten it.  Corrected it again.

HD changed the spec for the road glide.  In 12 I believe, prior to all touring  bikes used the same spec, after the change the road glide was tighter than the others, so less movement on the fall a way test.

After that, I alway reminded service writer to let the tech know it was a road glide and has a different fall a way.  Never had an issue since.

[Road Dad]

chitty design = wobble at low speed. (Yes 90 mph is low speed)

[Ironhorse]

Any update on this guy? I wonder how he's doing.

[Road Dad]

Considering his brilliant choice of protective gear my guess is not so good.

RAny update on this guy? I wonder how he's doing.

[Toofast_28]

I read the post from the people filming this, they said the guy had been riding it like this for miles and they knew it was going to get bad so they started filming.  Kept speeding up, it'd wobble, he'd slow down and settle it down, then speed up and repeat.

[moscooter]

I read the post from the people filming this, they said the guy had been riding it like this for miles and they knew it was going to get bad so they started filming.  Kept speeding up, it'd wobble, he'd slow down and settle it down, then speed up and repeat.

It that is the case,  it sure makes the last 5 words in the title of this post pretty damn true.

(ain't nothing to play with..........)

[grc]

With the road glide 09 and later it was almost always the neck bearing.  Had the issue with my 09 SERG.  Tightened the neck and it went away.  After a later service it came back, that service called for the neck bearing test.  I pulled out of dealership and was back in less than three miles and told them to check my neck bearing and tighten it.  Corrected it again.

HD changed the spec for the road glide.  In 12 I believe, prior to all touring  bikes used the same spec, after the change the road glide was tighter than the others, so less movement on the fall a way test.

After that, I alway reminded service writer to let the tech know it was a road glide and has a different fall a way.  Never had an issue since.

The rocket scientists at Harley didn't figure out that the old swing back test was dependent on the swinging mass of the entire front end, including the fairing and fairing mounted accessories.  Since the  Road Glide fairing wasn't fork mounted and didn't rotate with the rest of the front end, if the bearing preload was in fact the same as an eglide and both were tested with the swing back method, they would have significantly different test results.  Setting Road Glides to the same swing back spec as the batwing bikes resulted in loose bearings on Road Glides, and it took way too long for Harley and it's dealers to get up to speed on the issue.  I'm not convinced to this day that ALL dealerships understand.

The best method to set steering head bearing preload is the one used on the Trike models, measuring the effort to turn the steering head with a torque wrench or force gauge.  It's similar to the method used in the old days on car and truck steering gears to set bearing preload.  All the Mickey Mouse swing back or fall away tests Harley promotes are very poor approximations, designed more to make checking easier in the field instead of for accuracy.  Not many techs or customers would want to have to strip down the entire front end every time the bearing preload had to be checked.  One might think that in the modern world they could design and build a front end that would stay in adjustment and not need maintenance for the life of the bike, or at least 100k miles.  It shouldn't be hard to do, but obviously it must cost more than paying off a few lawsuits every year so Harley hasn't made the attempt.

Jerry

[SneakyPete]

This is exactly what happened to me and watching the video reminded me about how violent this wobble is and reinforced my decision at the time to get off the bike before going down with it.

I'm with the others on getting your bike checked out thoroughly to avoid the condition.  There is no procedure to get out of this wobble.  You can see in the video how quickly you go from wiggle to total loss of control.  In my case, the handlebars were ripped from my hands and at that point you go into survival mode.  My options at that point were bad and worse, I picked bad and rolled off the bike as I didn't want to have the front tire dig in and high side nor did I want to get tangled up with a 950 lb motorcycle sliding down the road at 75 mph like this guy.

Hope he survived that crash, as a minimum lots of road rash.