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Squeak in front .

scrinch

scrinch

Active Member
I just bought a 2001 Road King Classic w a Liberty sidecar set up. it only had 1000 miles on it. I had the 1000 mile service done at Harley a couple of weeks ago.

It has this disturbing loud squeak coming from the front every time I shift or cut back on the throttle. Only happens when moving so it is a little hard to determine exactly where it is. At first I thought it might be from the Heim connections where the sidecar is attached so I took them apart oiled, greased, and reassembled them, and made sure all the sidecar connections were tight. No improvement at all. The clutch and throttle cable do not squeak, or at least not when the bike is standing still.

Any ideas?
 
scrinch said:
I just bought a 2001 Road King Classic w a Liberty sidecar set up. it only had 1000 miles on it. I had the 1000 mile service done at Harley a couple of weeks ago.

It has this disturbing loud squeak coming from the front every time I shift or cut back on the throttle. Only happens when moving so it is a little hard to determine exactly where it is. At first I thought it might be from the Heim connections where the sidecar is attached so I took them apart oiled, greased, and reassembled them, and made sure all the sidecar connections were tight. No improvement at all. The clutch and throttle cable do not squeak, or at least not when the bike is standing still.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

I trust you have the HD Factory Service manual for the bike? Was this bike purchased new with the sidecar? Does your manual include that?

Even though you only have about 1k miles on the bike, I would suggest that you do a more extensive maintenance schedule than the actual miles on the bike. Either the bike sat for long periods of time with no riding, or all the riding was down the block and back. Neither of those are particularly good for the systems on the bike especially if the previous owner decided that since the bike was not getting used, it did not need servicing.

If the bike had been ridden just 5k miles/year, it would have about 35k miles on the clock. I suggest that you look through the maintenance section of the Operators Manual and perform whatever maintenance would have been done over that many miles. Use common sense here, so if it says "replace" something that would be a wear item, just inspect it and make sure it is still "fit-for-purpose" and does not show signs of damage from just sitting (like corrosion pitting, etc.).

Chances are that running through the maintenance effort will find and fix the squeaking problem you are having, even if you do not realize that you have fixed it at the time.

Let us know how it goes. BTW, you might post photos of your ride if you haven't already done so.

TQ
 
Check your drive belt alignment, if it's off it will squeak and make noise like you are talking about. Seen it many times.:)
 
Why not put someone in the side car and see if they can detect where it's coming from? Sounds to me like it's something in the attachment points of the car.
 
scrinch said:
I just bought a 2001 Road King Classic w a Liberty sidecar set up. it only had 1000 miles on it. I had the 1000 mile service done at Harley a couple of weeks ago.

It has this disturbing loud squeak coming from the front every time I shift or cut back on the throttle. Only happens when moving so it is a little hard to determine exactly where it is. At first I thought it might be from the Heim connections where the sidecar is attached so I took them apart oiled, greased, and reassembled them, and made sure all the sidecar connections were tight. No improvement at all. The clutch and throttle cable do not squeak, or at least not when the bike is standing still.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Can you unhook the side car and listen or bounce the bike while you have it sitting still and turned off to listen?
 
Thanks for the replies. They give me places to start looking. I also checked the air pressure in the shocks yesterday to find they had none. I haven't driven it since I pumped them up, but wonder if that may have been a cause.
 
I checked compressing the suspension, but nothing there. So I had my son ride and listen as I drove. He found the sound to be coming from under me instead of from the front. So this leads me to think that the belt alignment suggestion is probably correct.

The only prob is that I couldn't find any reference to belt alignment in the service manual. So are you talking about the rear wheel alignment?
 
Why not remove the sidecar then take her for a test ride?
That will at least tell you if it's the bike or the sidecar.

Rod
 
scrinch said:
I checked compressing the suspension, but nothing there. So I had my son ride and listen as I drove. He found the sound to be coming from under me instead of from the front. So this leads me to think that the belt alignment suggestion is probably correct.

The only prob is that I couldn't find any reference to belt alignment in the service manual. So are you talking about the rear wheel alignment?
Click to expand...

See this self help tip:

Rear Belt Drive Noise - Harley Davidson Community

Does your rear axle have lobes on both sides that bring the axle straight back as a unit, or can you adjust left and right separately? If the latter, then you need to ensure that the rear wheel is aligned. The book (HD Factory Service Manual) will describe how to do this.

More involved is aligning the bike as described here:

Vehicle Alignment Tool - Harley Davidson Community

As I suggested in a previous post, I think you should go through your Operator's Manual scheduled service section, and make a list of all the maintenance that should be done up to the 30,000 mile level. Go through this list on your bike using common sense about what it calls for. I think you will stumble across the culprit this way even if you do not recognize it, but the sound just goes away after performing the maintenance called for.

TQ
 
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