head steady upgrades?

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Wilco

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head steady upgrades?


has anyone had any experience with a rose jointed articulated head steady? I understand the standard item is considered by some as a flaw in the original design, as it allows more lateral movement at the top end, thus allowing more sideways movement in the wheel. These rose jointed items claim to improve handling, and by looking at the picture it seems as though it prevents sideways movement while allowing linear movement? is this right? would there be an adverse effect on vibration?
 
Wilco said:
has anyone had any experience with a rose jointed articulated head steady?
Click to expand...

Enter "Taylor" into the search, and you should get plenty of results?
 
Wilco said:
head steady upgrades?


has anyone had any experience with a rose jointed articulated head steady? I understand the standard item is considered by some as a flaw in the original design, as it allows more lateral movement at the top end, thus allowing more sideways movement in the wheel. These rose jointed items claim to improve handling, and by looking at the picture it seems as though it prevents sideways movement while allowing linear movement? is this right? would there be an adverse effect on vibration?
Click to expand...


The heim/rose joints in this configuration should allow vertical but not horizontal movement (shaking).
 
ah hah. the item i was looking at is indeed the dave taylor head steady, from the rgm website. It seems the way to go!
 
The Dave Taylor Head Steady (DTHS) allows movement back-and-forth and up-and-down, but not side to side. I fitted it to mine back in January, and it helped a bit with the stability of the bike. I didn't notice any increase in vibration. I got the MkIII version for my MkI, and the spring can be adjusted to counter some secondary vibration.

I'm playing around with the isolastics (I also have the vernier-type) this week, and the DTHS is now another factor to play with, trying to find that 'sweet spot'
 
I have a problem with the DTHS. It's not a big one, but the arm length is pretty short. When the engine is hopping around it's going to move in an arc with a radius defined by the length of the arm. So some of the up and down and forward backward motion is going to have a side to side element to it. If you've ever looked at a Buell you'll see the lengths, (pun intended), they went to to minimize this with a really long arm. Also the only way the frame end of the arm is indexed is by the clamping force on the tube, they skipped the bolt holes. An isolastic headsteady is the only one of the three that actually makes any sense because it's close to the centerline. There's been some talk about having three points to make a plane for the isolastic principal to work. The thing is they have to be in the same plane and that should be the centerline, or as close to it as possible. BTW, the front iso is nearly useless is this regard. The only thing it's good for is to keep the engine from hitting the ground. :)
 
I binned the poxy tin side plates and made some stronger ones out of aluminium alloy, but retained the rubbers but clamped more securely.
Dunno if it helped :?
 
My 2 cents. I have no problems with DTHS, used it this season and it makes wonders with your handling without adding vibrations :D
I don't believe that the arc created when the engine moves 1-2 mm up-down is a problem, at least not in practice.

Cheers,
Per
 
bpatton said:
I have a problem with the DTHS. It's not a big one, but the arm length is pretty short. When the engine is hopping around it's going to move in an arc with a radius defined by the length of the arm. So some of the up and down and forward backward motion is going to have a side to side element to it. If you've ever looked at a Buell you'll see the lengths, (pun intended), they went to to minimize this with a really long arm. Also the only way the frame end of the arm is indexed is by the clamping force on the tube, they skipped the bolt holes. An isolastic headsteady is the only one of the three that actually makes any sense because it's close to the centerline. There's been some talk about having three points to make a plane for the isolastic principal to work. The thing is they have to be in the same plane and that should be the centerline, or as close to it as possible. BTW, the front iso is nearly useless is this regard. The only thing it's good for is to keep the engine from hitting the ground. :)
Click to expand...

I read this post and went out to measure the length of the rose joint arm - its about 2 1/2 inches center-to-center. Lets call it 60 mm. Assuming a movement of 12 mm total back-and-forth or up-and-down would mean a maximum deflection of 6 mm. Using geometry, a right triangle with a hypotenuse of 60 and a height of 6 would have a base of 59.699. This would correlate to sideways deflection of .301 mm.
Even if back-and-forth movement reached a maximum deflection of 12 mm, sideways deflection would total 1.212 mm. I think the original rubber isolators would have been shredded by that much deflection.
 
Bill,

I did the math and you're right. The arm seemed pretty short in the pictures I've seen, I didn't know it's 2.5". Pers nailed it when he said that in practice, it's fine. I put an arm under my swingarm and practically obsessed about getting it as long as possible, wasted energy. But it was fun at the time.
 
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