Triple tree clunk

[Uglywhitebike]

I recently rode from New Orleans to Nashville on to Asheville and back down to Nola over the course of 8 days. When I was leaving Nashville I noticed a clunk from the front end when turning side to side at a stop. Came to realize I could see the tops of my fork tubes moving around a bit under the the top bridge of the triple trees where the rubber isolators are. I couldn’t find a shop to help out so I stopped at a Harbor Freight and got the necessary tools to tighten things up but to my surprise the bolts were already very tight. I cranked them down as much as possible and carried on but it has been bugging me since. Has anyone else experienced this?

 

[sixpack577]

Steering neck lock ring has backed off, or much more likely, the bearings need replaced.
Replace them with tapered bearings instead of ball bearings, the bike will track better.
If you work on your bike, it's not bad, I've done several over the years, and am waiting on tapered steering bearings for my Goldwing right now.
If you need a shop to do them, they'll probably hit you in the head for it...

 

[Uglywhitebike]

Yeah, not the neck bearings.
Top bridge was visually loose.
1-4 are the bolts I tightened. The arrow indicates where I saw movement. btw I stole and altered this image from another member, my bike is in a garage.

Just wondering if anyone else has had this happen to them.

 

[sixpack577]

Are there bushings under the Gen3 top plate?
Which could make movement more aparent with loose bolts, and a rubber mount would still give some dampening.

 

[Uglywhitebike]

Are there bushings under the Gen3 top plate?
Which could make movement more aparent with loose bolts, and a rubber mount would still give some dampening.

Yeah that’s exactly what’s going on, just weird that they would loosened up like that, guess this hasn’t happened to anyone else, I’ll be sure to replace those bolts with some thread lock but eventually I want to switch to a handlebar setup.

 

[Ked0607]

Any follow up on this? Did the simple tighten the bolts solve the issue?

 

[Uglywhitebike]

Any follow up on this? Did the simple tighten the bolts solve the issue?

It did help but there’s still more play than I like, not sure if it always had a little play and I’m just hyper aware now after the bolts backed out on me or what but I’m thinking about other options, I wish the spiegler bar kit wasn’t so expensive.

 

[Cruising180]

Are there bushings under the Gen3 top plate?
Which could make movement more aparent with loose bolts, and a rubber mount would still give some dampening.

Yes there are. I saw them when I was installing my Helibar riser. If you yank on the bars fore and aft hard enough you can make them move.

 

[Cruising180]

@bigoltool why you mad?