inolen

So, I had a few wrecks recently, and now when I press my front brakes hard to do an endo, my front end makes this creaking noise and my brakes seem to catch weird. This only happens when I brake hard. I took off my calipers and spun my wheel, both of my rotors *appear* to be straight. My pads are fine, my seals appear to be fine, head bearings are tight, and everything in general appears to be in good shape.. does anyone have any as to what might be causing this?

T-NECK

frames cracked.

inolen

I checked all around the neck of the frame this morning before coming into work real quick.. I don't see any.. could it be something else?

T-NECK

what bike?? dont forget to check the motor mounts as well for cracks.

Wheeliest

spin your front wheel with your calipers on... also make sure your tripple's are tight, the pinch bolts the hold the tubes. buy a can of brake cleaner and hose down your calipers also to get all the gunk/dust off them also, make sure your axle pinch bolts are tight and lube your wheel bearings and stem bearings if problem presists.

NINER

It may be the bearing race is loose in the frame. Common in wrecks where the front wheel hits something.

Wheeliest

^^^+1 Def check that.

inolen

F4i. Ok.. I'll check those.

How the hell do I tighten that? I tightened down those castle nuts under the triple.

I'll go spray off my calipers tonight as they were real dirty. When I tighten those bolts on the top triple anymore it makes the same creaking noise it makes when I press my brakes hard, heh. Axle pinch bolts? I don't know what those are..

NINER

You can't. You either have to have the frame welded and the rbearing race seat recut, or you can JB weld the bearing race in place. It will last a year or so, then you will have to re JB weld it.

Wheeliest

i thought bearing races were pressed in?

What you might want to do is loosen your axle pinch bolts & front axle then lift the load off your front end to where ur tire almost leaves the ground then loosen all your tripple tree bolts on the lower & upper bridges then tighten your front axle then your lower tripple then your upper tripple then the axle pinch bolts.


Bottom of the fork tubes theres 2 bolts, those are the pinch bolts. #20

PS: make sure the same amount of fork tube is coming out of the top tripple, ie.. use a ruler to messure each fork tube height.

NINER

[quote=Wheeliest]i thought bearing races were pressed in?

quote]
They are. but they are made out of steel and the frame is made out of aluminium. Guess what happens when a lot of force gets put on them in a wreck? They deform the aluminum of the frame.

Wheeliest

given the chances if it was a serious front end accident the standerd forks would give before the stem. is it a 954 front end?

NINER

I'd check it. You can **** it up without ****ing up the forks. It happened to my 900rr.

inolen

It's a stock f4i front end. I'll check those and do all of that tonight while frantically looking over my frame for cracks tonight Wheeliest.

Wheeliest

make sure to have a fat guy rock back and forth on your bike while he holds the front brake... it will help flex everything while u search for a crack.

-Nasty-

i would venture to say schwartz would say

loosen up both triples one at a time and let the forks resettle

sometimes they can get moved or twisted in there funny and this will allow it to go back to the original posistion

the aquard position of the tubes in the triples could be causing the noise

but i could be WAYYYYY off on this one, i tried to call schwartz to ask to verify

Wheeliest

thats why i said for him to loosen the axel, & tripples...

-Nasty-

thats what i thought

i tired to reread it

sorry if i said the same thing

inolen

I just loosened up my triples this weekend and thought I made sure everything was even but I didn't **** with those pinch nuts.. Oh well, one more time.

Wheeliest

make sure u tighten them in sequence, tightin the left lower tripple and start with the lower pinch bolt on the lower left tripple the tighten the one pinch bolt above it then back to the lower one etc till torque feels even then same to the right side, it normaly takes me about 10-15 times of switch from bottom to top lower tripple bolts to be confident on it, its def OCD quality but its a front end and ***** all ready hairy @ 150mph much less a loose fork tube ya know. when it comes to susspension spend the extra hour double and tripple checking your ****.

if you tighten it like i explained above starting by the axle to lower tripple to upper tripple everything should align...


The main test to make sure its all perfect is to simpley take off the top tripple/bridge after u have gone and tighten everything (even the top one) and put it back on, if your front end is susspended then it might not go on as easy just slowly let load back onto the front end till it aligns.