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Africa Twin Induced Handlebar OCD

7K views 11 replies 10 participants last post by  Shadowjack 
#1 ·
Hello everyone,

I realigned my handlebars after purchasing my 2017 as they were skewed to the right. Common problem apparently from how certain models were shipped.

To look at the bars, they are aligned with the caps of the forks when the bike is stationary.

However, I have noticed at highway speeds that they don’t always look straight. Sometimes they look off to the right (right bar closer to rider) even when I think I’m riding straight.

Other times, they look straight at highway speed when I’m going straight.

So, seeing as I’ve never had to think about misaligned bars with any other bike I’ve owned (aside from dirt bikes) my OCD has taken grip and I need to figure out why this seems to be the case.

Could road camber cause the bars to look off when riding in a straight line? Ie. am i countersteering a little bit to counter road camber on some roads?

Am I fighting the wind causing the bars to look off when going in a straight line?

Am I the only person who thinks about this? I love my AT but sometimes it causes me unnecessary stress lol.

Thanks for reading,
Paul
 
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#3 ·
The AT is notorious for being easily popped out of alignment. Before you loosen up everything from the axel to the triple tree be sure to first try simply loosening up the riser top clamps, wiggle the bars, and then tighten them back down. I discovered that more often than not, that is where they are tweaked.
 
#4 ·
I went through the same thing. I actually had my dealer generate a factory investigation because MY OCD had me convinced that the upper clamps were misdrilled during manufacturing.
The dealer tech looked at bikes on the showroom floor and found every bike had misaligned bars. Turns out the bar mounts are elastomerised, the threaded bits run through big rubber bushings in the top clamp. the holes have lots of wiggle room.
Turn the forks to full lock and give the bars a hearty torque filled tweak in the direction need to correct the offset. If no go, lossen the 17mm nuts on the bottom of the bar mounts, give them a twist in the corrective direction. Retorque nuts.
I've got my mounts as tight as I can get them and I still have too much play. Just turning the bars while sitting on the bike will tweak the alignment. I've got Rox Risers with elastomeric mounts that have 2" more height than OEM. This puts more leverage on the factory mounts.
I'm now considering hard mounting the bar mounts to remove that wiggle room with the rubber bushings. the Rox Risers give me all the vibration isolation I need. The slop in the bar alignment bugs the tar out of me. Swapping the bushings for big stainless washers hopefully will allow me to fix the bar mount issue.
 
#7 ·
If you sit on the bike and wobble the bars from left to right quickly you can feel the slop between the bars and the front wheel it feels like the bars are connected to the front wheel via 2 pieces of string do that on a KTM and its as direct as a direct thing

If anyone sorts out a method of removing the slop even if by removing the rubber bushing id be very interested
Rob
 
#10 ·
This is something I recently noticed but I don't think it's to critical to feel the play you speak of although it's possible your bushings could be worn or damaged. At high speeds on dirt not only would vibration need to be dampened but also the shock of the bars moving horizontally into and away from your hands. While sitting stationary it may seem like "slop" but at high speeds off-road it would reduce horizontal shock as well as reducing vibrations. Personally I wouldn't remove the bushings I think They provide a good dampening effect. I havnt noticed under normal riding conditions that the bars move out of alignment. Only under circumstances ware the bars have unnecessary force applied will they move out of alignment
 
#11 ·
I dealt with this. Bars seemed off when I bought the bike ever so slightly. It kicked my ocd into high gear, but hadn't done anything about it....fast forward a few months, I was on a trip and went down hard at about 30mph, got caught in a muddy run and into the ditch I went.

I got the bike up and no damage other then the bars were now oriented to 2 o'clock. I motored the bike to a nearby tree and turned the bars with the tree preventing the wheel from turning. With medium effort i got the bars back situated perfectly.

Those bushings are there by design. It prevents worse damage when the bike goes down. I would suggest to align the bars like I did, and not modify anything. It works just as it should and many bikes probably got sold without being perfectly aligned.
 
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