I'm interested to hear the outcome as well. While I had no wobble with my KLX, I'm getting some bad wobble at 120km/h on my KTM. I have the tires just below 30 but might try lowering them as well. 16 seems low though? Would this damage the tires/tubes while hitting pavement for a while (in town commuting).

 

my forks are almost all the way down. there is about 1/4" more that I could lower them but not sure it's worth it. my bead seems to be seated fine but who knows... i will try to lower the air pressure and if that doesn't work, the rim lock and balancing weights are coming off...

 

Put the max air that the tire calls for and then do some testing. You might also check the steering free play. You may have a bearing that has some pitting. At the very least pull it apart and grease it up good. My bike had this weird weave back and forth until I took it apart and re-packed the bearings.

 

This is interesting to me because I have a similar problem, a really scary wobble at speed. I had just fitted new D606's front and rear in preparation for a desert trip. At first I thought it might be the weight of all the water and gas I had to carry but even without any weight it still does it. It's not as scary with a completely unloaded bike but is still unpleasant and forces me to back off on speed. Note that all this was on a bike that had no problems at all with handling on an older, worn dunlop MX tyre.

I tried raising the pre-load on the back, no change. Tried increasing tyre pressure, no change. Lowering tyre pressure to around 15 psi, that actually seemed to help a bit though the wobble is definitely still there.

I'm loath to believe it's steering bearings since there were no problems before and all the checking I've done shows no roughness, catching or looseness. I am a bit mystified frankly and thinking of going to a more street oriented tyre to see what that does. And I have done a good few hundred miles on the tyres so they are 'broken in'.

 

Mine is not actually a wobble, I probably could have worded this thread better. It's more like the bike seems to grab left or right and then it takes a second to normalize. It's hard to explain but I know it's not normal.

 

Normally a bike will get unstable if you load the front end so that the fork is compressed. Since the KLX has very soft suspension, if you are leaning forward on it, the "trail" or caster effect can be reduced to zero,causing a speed wobble. Try leaning back and taking the weight off the fork at speed on the road. Some tires do make it worse on pavement but I have never heard of a properly installed tire on dirt causing wobbles.. Try lifting the front wheel off the ground and see if there is any roughness in your steering head bearings.

 

I agree. When I commute in 65mph zones, I encounter turbulence from other vehicles like trucks and SUV's which make my front end more unstable. Then I say to myself "scoot back on the seat dummy" then the bike becomes a bit more manageable. But I have to make a conscious decision to adjust to the very different types of riding that I do on the bike.

More to the point of this thread though, I've had my back wheel with a rim lock professionally ballanced and I still feel like it's a bit off at times. On the rear wheel that's one thing. But on the front it's a whole different ballgame. Steering is kinda key huh?

M

 

Weird, putting weight as far forward onto the front end reduces my wobble problem. Sitting farther back seems to make it worse.

Is it possible that if he's taken a crash that he's bumped the front for alignment out? I recall someone on here used to put the front wheel between his legs and turn the handle bars to try to correct, not unlike a bicycle.

PS mike that black snake moan stare is crazy! Man I love Sammy Jackson

 

I put the bike up on a stand last night and spun the front wheel. It looks like it may be out of balance after all. As the wheel spins, the bike kind of rocks back and forth on the bike stand. The place I took the wheel to be balanced is a little "iffy" so I may take the wheel back off and bring it to a dealer for balancing. If it's anything less than perfect, I'm taking the rim lock off. I don't really think it's necessary for the front wheel anyway...

 

Ok, I started this thread last year and I know it's old but I wanted to update it in case anyone ever has this problem.

I never really resolved the front end issue last season. Tweaking would "help" but it never felt planted. This year I decided to pull the front wheel, remove the rim lock, and get the wheel balanced.

It made a huge improvement. The front end feels like it did when I bought the bike. I should never have put the front wheel rim lock on as it's probably not necessary anyway. I'm sure lots of people run front rim locks with no issue but for me, it was doing something that kept the front wheel from being completely in balance. (even though I had it balanced twice with the rim lock installed).

Anyway, hope that info helps someone down the road. Can't wait to hit the trails this season!