So thanks to your guys' help, I got my front fork seals changed out and back together handily....I also had my local shop change out the front tire for a Michelin Pilot-Activ (The old tires still have some tread but are of dubious and unknown age).

WOW! I'd forgotten what it was like to *not* wallow in a hard stop--and the bike really soaks up the bumps so much better now.  Turn-in also feels soooo much better!

HOWEVER - Now I'm experiencing a mild up-down oscillation that seems related to tire rotation speed.  It changes with speed, doesn't cut out when I pull in the clutch, feels more pronounced over 40 mph, and doesn't change in sweeping turns in either direction.  It feels OK around town (doesn't influence handling) but the increase in oscillation over 40 is enough to give me serious pause about taking the bike on the freeway.

Could I have forgotten something putting the front end back together? Or could it be a balance issue from the shop?

Sounds like the shop didn't balance the tyre. Quick check as no tyre is ever in perfect balance with a rim - do you have any nice shiny new stick-on balance weights on the rim? If not, there's your problem.

+1 on balance.

There is a dot either yellow or red on the sidewall of your tyre. This is there to help with balancing and should align with your tyre valve. If you have no weights and the dot does not line up it will most probably be out of balance.
Regards Martin.

zaubertuba wrote:
Could I have forgotten something putting the front end back together? Or could it be a balance issue from the shop?

Yes!

I use this. No weights to deal with and it dynamically balances the tires as well as providing some puncture protection.

duck wrote:I use this. No weights to deal with and it dynamically balances the tires as well as providing some puncture protection.

How messy are tire changes.  There are tire shops around here that won't put a tire with that stuff on their machine or if they do add a $$$ charge for the mess.

I've never had issues with tire changes at shops.

One time I made the fateful decision to try to change tires manually with tire irons just to see if I could do it and how hard it was. (I did it but it was a lot of work and decided that in the future it was worth paying somebody else to do it.)  The tires were a couple of years old and the stuff had set up so it stuck to the inside of the tires and made no mess.

And it doesn't take a whole lot of it. I had new tires installed for my K1100RS last week and that took 7oz in the front and 10oz in the rear. (I made it very clear to the shop that I only wanted the tires mounted, not balanced.)

And it does work well. After getting the new tires installed last week I had the bike up over 115 and it rode very smoothly.

Another product which uses the same principle (automatic dynamic balancing) is Dynabeads.  From what I've read those tend to go all over the place.

Apologies for the hijack.

I do my own tires and when I rode enduros I used that green slime shit.  What a mess!  The tire store where I get tires for the family four-wheelers has a sign that says they charge a $10 clean up fee if that stuff is in your tire. 

I used the DynaBeads once, and yes, they get everywhere.  I'm still finding them 2 years later.

If the stuff hardens up in the tire and doesn't flow, what happens when the bike is parked for a long time?  Or if you take it out for a ride in the winter when the temperatures are in the low 30's?  Will it flow back to where it needs to be to balance the tire?

I like the idea of a dynamic balancer in the tire, but so far I've not had good experiences.

Point-Seven-five wrote:If the stuff hardens up in the tire and doesn't flow, what happens when the bike is parked for a long time?  Or if you take it out for a ride in the winter when the temperatures are in the low 30's?  Will it flow back to where it needs to be to balance the tire?

I've wondered about this also and don't really have a good answer.  However, since I have several bikes, some of them don't get ridden for extended periods of time but when I do pull them out they seem to ride fine. Somewhat of a mystery to me.

Have you gotten any comments from the guys who change your tires?  Maybe the stuff isn't as messy anymore?

There was one time where I had a very new rear get a nasty wide gash in it so I needed to replace it.  I took it to Chaparral (a huge MC store in SoCal) and told them ahead of time that the tire had Ride-On in it.  They didn't seem to mind and made no comments about it when I picked it up after installation.

That's good to hear.  I might just have to try it.

Please Nooooo, don't morph this thread into the pros and cons of self balancing beads and similar voodoo options. This is seconded only to an oil thread...
Check very carefully where the tyre site against the rim. There is normally a fine raised rubber 'line' and this should be the same distance out from the rim all the way around. There is a possibility that the tyre is not fitted correctly to the rim. IMHO an unbalanced tyre generally won't cause you any vibrations unless you are travelling at pretty high speeds. Where I live no shop was able to balance tyres so our local MCC purchased a static balancer. Until then, I rode with unbalanced tyres on my K1200RS for several years and never had a vibration issue even when the speedo needle was facing south

KiwiK100 wrote:Please Nooooo, don't morph this thread into the pros and cons of self balancing beads and similar voodoo options. This is seconded only to an oil thread...
Check very carefully where the tyre site against the rim. There is normally a fine raised rubber 'line' and this should be the same distance out from the rim all the way around. There is a possibility that the tyre is not fitted correctly to the rim. IMHO an unbalanced tyre generally won't cause you any vibrations unless you are travelling at pretty high speeds. Where I live no shop was able to balance tyres so our local MCC purchased a static balancer. Until then, I rode with unbalanced tyres on my K1200RS for several years and never had a vibration issue even when the speedo needle was facing south

If in doubt with this you can overinflate to correctly seat the bead evenly and then let the pressure back to what it should be.

Wheel should be balanced but a balanced wheel may still have a tyre out of true in which case if this does seat it correctly may solve your problem. However may need to rebalance after.

My apologies for the hijack.  If they would be so kind, would the moderators remove my posts from this thread.

Marginally off topic maybe but hijack.... definitely not.

What I like about the principal of the Dyna beads or the green goo stuff is that often a tyre needs to be re balanced at some time of its life but the beads or goo remove that need and keep the running smooth right to the end.  That said I just use the weights for the reasons above, green slimy goo and beads in all corners of the cave.