Shimming the Top Clamp

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Using the shop manual, I reassembled the front suspension and fork tubes. Then, I cut-off the tip of my .004 feeler gauge and shimmed between the top clamp hole and the shoulder of the bearing adjustment nut where it fit loosely. This absolutely eliminated the fore-and-aft freeplay.

I re-installed the top nut and torqued it to factory specs and bent the keeper back up against a facet of the nut to lock it in place. Finally, I reinstalled the chrome cover.

The result? I never had any Wide Glide Clunk afterwards. I even tried to induce the clunk with very hard braking (to the point of skidding the front wheel at low speeds).