Yes, I know, but I couldn’t resist it!
I guess there must be a bit of OCD in me because little things that aren’t quite right have the ability to really annoy me. So, when I mentioned my vibration problem the other week you probably thought I was being a bit “thingy”. Sadly my rejoicing over finding a solution to the fairing movement was a bit premature. After doing up all the Allen key bolts in the fairing, the next ride I took was at night and the darkness obscured the fact that I hadn’t actually fixed it at all even though it looked better.
Last Sunday morning’s ride proved that the problem was still there, reduced in intensity but still annoyingly there. There was no choice, I had to dig deeper. It seemed clear to me that the problem was connected to the brackets that actually support the front of the fairing so this morning I took off all the bits that would allow me access to the brackets and started looking for something that was broken and/or loose.
It didn’t take long. The main spar that supports the fairing and the instrument panel is attached to the steering head by a “Y”” shaped box-section piece of tubing. This can be seen in the middle of the above picture. At the end of the “Y” it bolts to the steering head by two bolts that, perplexingly, have a 12mm head but a 14mm nut on the other end. And the top bolt (the one in the photo) was ridiculously loose, it requiring a large number of turns to do the nut back up again. The bottom bolt was perfectly tighr but, having tightened the top bolt and nut up, the bracket would now not move at all.
Reassembly in the reverse order of disassembly showed that the fairing was completely sold with no movement at all. I need to take it out on the road to finally prove the oint but I have no doubt that I have not only discovered the cause of the problem but also solved it as well.
It’s always nice to find a problem and solve it yourself.