[RacerX1]

The inner tube of the fork can rotate in the outer tube, so there shouldn’t be a problem if they rotated. If everything is lined up properly there should be no headshake at speed. The forks may have gotten twisted in the triple tree, which would have the effect of one fork being more forward then the other, which could cause the alignment problem. The only other thing I can think of is that one of the forks got bent, which will be pretty expensive to fix. Hopefully your friend got the guys name and number that caused the accident. If everything is lined up properly one should be able to go down the road at anything over 10 or 20 MPH let go of the handle bars and ride straight down the road all day long like on a 10 speed bicycle (probably dated myself with the 10 speed comment).

 

[Cameron]

I was wondering about the forks getting twisted in the triple clamps. I asked about that above, but I may not have been clear enough with my question. How do I correct this? Can I just loosen the triple clamp bolts and let the forks self align or do I need to do something special?

Unfortunately, the guy in the Blazer that caused the wreck, never even stopped and my friend was too busy wrecking to get the license plate number.

 

[RacerX1]

I’m just kind of guessing here, so you may want to wait for others to respond, but I’m thinking once you get the bike up on a front stand (not the kind that holds it at the bottom of the forks, but at the triple clamp), or suspend the frame you should be able to loosen the bolts to the top and bottom triple tree and working them back and forth slightly they should self align. I’ve never had this problem, so again you may want to hold off any major work until other have responded. Hope this helps.

 

[Cameron]

That's what I was thinking too. Its at least worth a try.

 

[Cameron]

I have a buddy who bought an 03 ZX636 right before I bought my ZRX (a couple of months ago). Last week, he had a little mishap with a curb in Wal-Mart parking lot. Some guy in a blazer didn't see him and he tried to miss the blazer resulting in a collision with the curb. He obviously layed the bike over, but did very little damage. He knocked off a signal light and scratched it up some. Something is also amiss in the handle bars. Since I work on bikes from time to time, I got asked to help assess the problem.

I think I know what is wrong, but I am unsure on what to do to correct it. First question, can clipon handle bars slip around the fork or do they only go on one way. What I mean is, can you loosen the allen head bolt and rotate the clipon around the fork tube or is there a key or something similar that would prevent that. It feels like the handlebars are pointed a little to the left when you are riding straight. I thought that the clipon handlebar might have slipped around the fork a little. I also think that the fork tubes rotated in the triple clamps and got locked there during the accident. Is this possible? What do I do to correct this? Can I just loosen the triple clamp bolts and let the forks realign themselves or do I need to do something special to make sure that everything is aligned properly? When you let go of the bars at 60mph or so, there is a little handlebar shake. Would you consider this normal, or a result of the mislaligned forks or maybe something else? My ZRX doesn't shake at all when you let go of the bars. Is there anything else that I need to check when looking over this bike.

Thanks for the help,