new suspension more info

[Greg Jewell]

I put new proggressive springs in my 06' klr a little over a year ago. Dramatic difference off road, handles much better and I can scrape the foot peg on corners at 50+ mph pavement. I travel the I-15 In so. cal. every week through the cajon pass 60+ mph gusts some times. It gets a little hairy but I haven't blown off the road yet. I usually travel at 80mph sometimes more. I've never had any handling issues with the bike except off road and the progressive springs have fixed alot of that. Greg [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[bryanonfire]

Hi, A couple months ago I was doing routine maintenance and per the Clymer and KLR manuals, my steering head was loose. There was some fore-aft play in the forks. Plus, I'd never lubed it and was pretty sure the DPO hadn't either. After gleaning advice from this group's files, I pulled it apart. The upper oil seal was in bad shape and the bearings were dry. I ordered a new oil seal. Then my job got very hectic, then I had to go out of town for a while, so the bike was left with the bars off and the steering head loose but carefully shielded from dust, moisture, etc. After a month away from the project I came back to it this evening to grease it all up, install the new oil seal, and put it back together. I cleaned and greased the bearings, top and bottom. They appeared to be in fine condition, as did the races. (Only 19,000 miles on the bike, most of them fairly easy.) After greasing the bearings I pushed all the stuff back into place and tightened the steering head adjustment nut until there was no fore-aft play in the head, but the steering assembly still swung side to side with ease. With the bars centered, a slight push sent them to either side with no resistance. Now the mystery. After I had the adjustment nut tightened I dropped the claw washer on. It would not seat all the way. A quick inspection showed that it can't: there's a beveled neck on the steering head column above the adjustment threads that the claw washer can't go down past. That would suggest I took the steering adjustment nut down too far, but that's how far I had to go to get the play out of the system. I was very careful to take it a little at a time until all fore-aft play was gone. Even if the bearings and races were trashed (which they are not) they couldn't possibly leave that much free play. Could they? The claw washer would need to drop almost 1/8 inch to be firmly seated against the steering head adjustment nut. So, I backed the adjustment nut off a bit, and at the point where there is about 1/32" fore-aft play in the front end the claw washer is still far from fully seated. I looked at a parts fiche and I'm not missing any parts or spacers. What's up with that claw washer? Why won't it seat? It is less than 1/16" down on the steering head nut with everything tight. And no, it isn't because I deformed the slots in the nut when I tapped it down. It's definitely not seating due to the bevel on the steering head shaft. About two threads of the threaded shaft portion are showing above the adjustment nut when it is tightened to the point there is no play in the forks. I'm probably making some dumb rookie mistake. Please, esteemed masters of the KLR, point it out for me so I don't seriously bung something up trying to figure it out. Thanks in advance! Bryan