Have an issue or two. The bike is great. However, i wanted to suit it for highway use in case i go out of state. Right now, the bike has a 21 inch knobby tire on the front tire. The front end tire shakes at 70 mph and cannot go faster. I need a cheap recommendation. I may want to get another wheel set up with a 19 inch wheel and a better all around tire like the sahara enduro 3 or get a 21 inch tire like the enduro that is better on the street. I want to be able to go 80 or 85 on the highway with no wobble. Thanks for any input.
I have close to 12k miles on my bike now. I ride between 70-90 mph everyday on my way back and fourth to work. No problems on the stock Sahara's. Change your tires back would be the cheapest solution. If you have read through the forums there is a lot of talk about this. Most have found knobby tires and hand guards big culprits of the death wobble.
Ok. Ill change the front knobby tire back to a sahara. I purchased a booster plug to help smooth the idle and shifting. My other problem is that I was thinking about changing the exhaust to two dual screaming demons (600 on ebay) or 2 dual gbr (700 on ebay). They have them as one pipe which cost almost as much inm gbr (500 ebay). And im not sure how well gutting out the current stock exhaust helps. I just know loud pipes help save lives on motorcycles. I am knew to motorcycling. So sorry for anything that seems silly i say. This link shows a bunch of special stuff the guy has done to his 650 over the years. Gutting out the muffler and just using 1 of them seemed the most appealing to me as my next thing to do as. Its not pasting but the link is bigdogadventures.com/11huskytr650.htm Just wanted to see what you think my best option will be. Thanks for any input.
The front end tire shakes at 70 mph and cannot go faster Try balance your tires! Loud pipes don't save lives just pisses everyone off!
You might be able to balance it but from most of the terra owners the knobbies are the cause to death wobbles above 80 anyways. I have not run them so if any one on a tr650 has knobbies over 80 with no problems maybe they will chime in. I think you mean GPR exhaust and if so I am planning on going the single but make sure you buy the pipe currently at $608. These bikes run lean so buy a power commander and have it tuned at minimum if it was me. They run lean I think up to 3500 rpms and rich in the high rpm's so the spoofer is not very accurate if you want it to run its best. You do not need to add the exhaust to go over 90mph though just gives better low to mid range power. Also gutting the stock pipes leaving the duals is fine. Might still need to a fueler though. From my research just leaving the one can cuts the flow up top with the factory can gutted. You can go with a louder exhaust ours sound like lawn mowers with a bird chirp factory. Also check ADV forums and read through the 330+ pages on the bike. There is a lot to learn with this bike. I bought this bike to get back into riding again and enjoy working on my own vehicles so this was a crash course back into bikes. I have 12k miles only problem was with spark plugs and bottom frame mount causing high vibrations until figured out. How many miles on the bike now?
I run knobbies only & once I wear them in for a couple of hundred km's, any wobbles disappear and I can comfortably ride at speeds in excess of 80mph. I do get my tyres fitted by a specialist so they should be well balanced. MT21's are my usual choice of tyre.
Running Kenda Big Blocks front and back, Highway Dirt Bike guards. No wobbles here. But the front Kenda sucks on dirt...no grip. Next will be Kenda Big Block rear, D606 front.
I don't have a Terra, but I had the death wobble on my KLR 650 until I pulled the hand guards off. I've been running dynabeads on the bike since before I pulled the hand guards. So balancing was not the culprit in my case. I've also read that a loose steering head bolt can cause a wobble.
Might want to quieten the rear down a bit. Mitas 07 rear will do that and subtract from the aggressive front-bias. That's, if you don't mind a bit of a loose rear end on the dirt...(of shit, just realized how that might come across :-))))
So i had the front knobby changed out at philadelphia cycle center to a even less knobby tire. (It was cheap). Although i wanted to go for a sahara in the front also. The new front tire rides with less control over bumps and seems to be less effective on going over bumps in the road. It feels more shaky and scarier to do turns. Not sure what to think. Im new to this. Just wanted to give an update on my wobble issue. Im still waiting for the booster plug to ease shifting and run smoother idle.
So you didn't try balancing the old front so you install a new front and didn't balance it either? So why ask for a cheap recommendation if you don't listen?
By any chance have you lowered the bike? Ie: lowering links and raising the fork tubes in the triples?
I've got a Strada (19/17)... with the stock tires, I got it up to 90mph, and there was no shaking at all. I just put TKC80's on (rear is balanced... didn't bother with the front), and when I get over 70mph, the front gets twitchy. So, I think it's the knobbies. Mine doesn't really shake, but it's not confidence inspiring. I'm not a high-speed guy, so I figure I'll just keep cruising speed at 70, or below.
Besides the obvious wheel balancing to stop vertical shake/bounce you may want to consider the GPR steering stabilizer to dampen the "wobble" or head shake tendencies. I've had mine to about 85 mph or so with no tire bounce (ie balance problems), but the bike isn't the most stable and could use a little more rake and trail IMO. I decided a steering stabilizer was in order and mounted up the GPR. It's NOT cheap, but it really does dampen down the wobble forces and is easily adjustable to suit the current riding situation. I'd probably lighten up the dampening for dirt riding then crank in more dampening once I hit the slab. The bike is much more stable feeling on the freeway now and I'm happy to have spent the $$$ and effort to be able to ride more safely and with more confidence at higher speeds. I HATE wobble or head shake at speed, it's scary and unnecessary. I don't really agree with the steeper head angles that are popular these days. Here's a couple photos of the GPR mounted on my bike. One side benefit is their mount raises the bars by 3/4" which was perfect for me.
