WHEELS NOT LINING UP feels like I'M TURNING LEFT

ANLAF

ANLAF

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Last night I moved the rear wheel back to tighten-up the chain and when I finished torqued back to 108lbs (that's tight).

I was careful as I could be to make sure the adjustment was the same on both sides (to the naked eye it looks to be), and I did the old straight-edged pieces of wood alongside the rear tyre to lie alongside the front tyre.

Ride today I took one hand off the grip and wow! a noticable pull left.

Any advice, fellers - by theway the tyres are in really good shape and the frame straight as a straight thing, but it's a chopper so the front wheel is some distance away from the rear.

Anlaf
 
Mark the adjusters and set it pointed a bit more to the left. see if the chain still looks OK at the new "normal". Try it again.
With a heavily raked fork the front is going to want to flop......
 
What I might suggest is measuring from center off the lower engine bolt back to the center of the axle on each side.
Leo
 
My thought was to measure from a repeatable point up front, like the front engine mount bolts left and right. If you had a swingarm, you could hang a plumb bob from the grease fittings in the swingarm bolt for a reference that should be square to the frame. Those dang tic marks are off on MOST bikes in my experience.
 
These are great ideas, much appreciated.

By the way, I have the two eight-feet long fluorescent light bulbs, but I can't lift the bike up to the ceiling.

Anlaf
 
lift the rear wheel off the ground, spin the wheel, if the chain is tighter at any point or gets looser somewhere, your wheel is not straight.

if you do that and it checks out, the forks could possible be tweaked.
 
Hey ANLAF, adjust the rear axle, in small increments, to where it tracks straight, doesn't pull to one side. Then, see how far off the wheels are using the boards or fluorescent tubes. Good method to check for frame twist and such. Mark the adjusters for this new alignment...
 
Tron, wheel alignment has very little to do with tight spots in a chain.
The sprockets are very close to right but they do have some out of round. as well as the center hole not being in the center. The teeth are not all the same.
The chain, the side plates are not all the same length as well as the pins and roller vary.
All these things add up. So the chain has tight spots where all the variances add up to make it tight. When all the variances line up to the other extreme the chain gets a slack spot.
Thats all on a new chain and sprockets, after some wear it just gets worse.
I guess that if the chain was loose enough and the wheel far enough off the chain may get tighter as the chain rides up on the teeth then gets slack when the chain slides back down off the teeth.
ANLAF, The wheel may be straight in the frame, it may not be centered under the bikes center of gravity. Do the measuring to determine if straight in the frame. If straight recheck for alignment with the front wheel.
If off the wheel may not be centered under the center of gravity. This can cause the bike to act as you describe.
On all of my bikes if I get them up to speed and let go of the bars they track straight, except for the Harley. I have to shift my weight over to the right to keep it straight.
I have checked the wheel alignment several times. I have used long straight boards as well as using string to check the rear wheel to the front. As far as I can determine the rear wheel sets about 1/8 inch to the right.
Being a rubber mounted driveline it has an adjustable link on the top engine mount. I have not tried adjusting the top engine mount to try to fix it, afraid to screw it up and make it worse. Under normal riding you will never notice the problem.
On a weld on hardtail it may have a built in offset to allow the rear wheel to center under the center of gravity and still allow for the drive line. This lets you run a wider tire and still have clearance on the drive side.
If you watch any of the Chopper shows on tv you can see this on the bikes. They center the engine but use an offset transmission mount plate and primary. Sometimes as much as an inch offset.
It may take a lot of measuring to determine this.
Good luck.
Leo
 
jd750ace, I have checked the marks on the adjusters of all my bikes just to varify them. I can't recal ever finding one off enough to bother. Maybe I've just been lucky.
It's not hard to check.
Leo
 
Thanks, fellers. It's a matter of trial and error. It was fine before I adjusted to tighten-up the the chain so I'll go back to square one - before adjustment the axle sat in the frame as far towards the engine as it could go, and that was straight. I'll get back to that and adjust the same amounts on both sides as well as trying the measuring techniques you suggest.

Anlaf
 
typically aligning a rear tire is best done by using a straight edge along side of the rear and front sprocket. Frame marks are imprecise and suceptble to changes over years as frames take abuse. Also using the front wheel is not advised.

Aign the rear wheel by aligning the front and rear sprocket faces with a straighe edge. Think about it awhile.

Best of luck!
 
I have been measuring and adjusting until I am blue in the face. I have come to the conclusion that the rear wheel is off-set a fraction to allow the drive chain to clear the 16" wheel, as on XSLeo's Harley. It is only a small amount - I can't quite measure exactly, but there it is and I am stuck with it for the moment.

Thanks again, fellers.

Anlaf
 
I just aligned mine last month after installing a new chain and sprockets. I thought i had it really strait
Measuring carefully from the swing arm grease zirks, but one ride to work and I knew it was wayyy off. the handle bars where not strait going down the road.

I used info from this site and used strings,
http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/howto/string_align_motorcycle_wheels/
It takes some time, its nice to have a helper,

My bike has never went down the road better.
Having done it once the next time will be easier.
 
since my chop was de-tabbed and re-tabbed, all original reference points have moved. I use the tips of the spark plugs. I even them up side to side, and bike runs straight.
 

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