Front End Wobble/Shake  By  jrnyman (Read 28,021 times)

Might be a balance issue. U could take the rim to a motorcycle shop to balance it.

Its your steering bearings most likely the assembly is not tightened. You asked for suggestions so I suggest you buy another Honda if you want smooth

Start with the easy stuff. Check the steering bearings and the front axle. Just have someone hold down the back end so the front is off the ground and then wiggle things around to see if anything is abnormal.

I had a vibration on my front end, and used Ride-On in my front tire, and that fixed most of it. I am still running on the tires that came with the scooter. I want to upgrade to some Michelins as soon as I can afford it!

Many times this is simply the side effect of heavy braking with the front tire slightly under inflated causing feathered wear of the tread blocks. Sometimes inflating 2 or 3 psi over what's printed on the bikes inflation sticker without going over the max inflation stamped into the sidewall will resolve this if you haven't' allowed things to go too far. If the tire feathering is very apparent and raising the pressure doesn't help then you may just have to replace the tire.

This will occur even with the best of tires if the inflation pressure is not matched to you and how you ride. Track and LeMans racer's get thrown quite often from not pitting their bikes and adjusting tire pressure in a timely manner when its set too low for the conditions they are riding in.

Scootnwin is most likely right.

Do check for any looseness in the fork-crown. If it's there, tighten/adjust the fork at the crown. Don't over-tighten, but have no slop. Wobble in the front fork is not at all uncommon on any type of cycle. In the old days, we had "road-dampers" on most big bikes. Just tighten it a little and you were good to go. Some modern cycles have little "shock-absorber-like" devices connecting from one, or both fork legs to the frame to tame this.

My Xingyue has always had a little of this phenomenon, and the forks are tight, wheels right, nothing amiss at all. It's simply the flex inherent in the step-through frame. The wonky motor-mount/rear "fork" and such don't help either. Except for the highest-quality scooters and motorcycles, front-end wobble is all too common. I found that keeping my tires HARD really does help, but the flat-floor, step-through frame design often simply has no "triangulation" or "girder-construction" with no top frame member and this makes it hard to keep the frame from flexing.

Flat-floor, step-through Vespas use a sophisticated "uni-body" frame/body design that makes a stout structure. Most larger scoots use SOME form of "top-rail". That precludes a flat floor, and makes the "hump" in the floor to climb over.

I'm looking to step up to a 250 but with plenty of arthritis, I still want a flat-floor. Kymco is one of the few 250cc and bigger with a flat floor. I tried out a used Grand Vista, and it was pretty good up to 75 mph. Relax grip on the bars, and kick the floorboard hard sideways, and a slight wobble could be induced, but overall, not bad.

In Chinese (and even MUCH more expensive scoots) in the 50, 150 and similar sizes with step-through frames, I think some tendency to wobble is pretty common. Make sure the fork is tight, alignment is straight, wheels balanced and tires filled hard, and it becomes much less a problem. Be careful though, grab onto the bars tight and stop the wobble IMMEDIATELY if you sense it beginning. Once it starts, it can get out of hand and put you on the ground.

Even $40,000 cycles CAN do it on occasion, so be careful. I've ridden now for over 50 years and have found ANY bike CAN wobble under just the right conditions. The better the bike, the less the tendency, but they ALL can do it. I'd give a nickel to have them bring back the good old screw-down road-dampers! They were true LIFE-SAVERS even on poorly-designed old cycles!

Ride safe!

Leo in Texas