Royboy
many roads, little time
- Messages
- 1,079
- Reaction score
- 199
- Points
- 63
A little advice please.
Here's something I have been pondering for a couple weeks now. After the 77'D took it's spill this spring, and during the subsequent rebuild, I've been fretting over the front end alignment. The bike doesn't handle as well as it did prior to the accident. New parts, (fender, headlight stays) don't fit as well as they should.
The bike went down on the left side, the bars hooked the pavement and slammed hard left, breaking off the steering stop and allowing the fork to punch in the tank on the left side.
We removed the lower clamp, made repairs, replaced the bearings, tried to check for square and reassembled. When I check front to rear alignment now I'm getting several (maybe three) degrees of bias to the left. Yet the stem is 90 degrees vertical to the clamp and the clamp seems to sit square when placed on my sheet of 1/2" glass which is kept around to check such things. The fork tubes roll smoothly when placed on a flat surface.
So here is the question, how do I determine whether the lower clamp and the stem are square? And if not, how do I correct?
As always your wisdom is appreciated.
roy
Here's something I have been pondering for a couple weeks now. After the 77'D took it's spill this spring, and during the subsequent rebuild, I've been fretting over the front end alignment. The bike doesn't handle as well as it did prior to the accident. New parts, (fender, headlight stays) don't fit as well as they should.
The bike went down on the left side, the bars hooked the pavement and slammed hard left, breaking off the steering stop and allowing the fork to punch in the tank on the left side.
We removed the lower clamp, made repairs, replaced the bearings, tried to check for square and reassembled. When I check front to rear alignment now I'm getting several (maybe three) degrees of bias to the left. Yet the stem is 90 degrees vertical to the clamp and the clamp seems to sit square when placed on my sheet of 1/2" glass which is kept around to check such things. The fork tubes roll smoothly when placed on a flat surface.
So here is the question, how do I determine whether the lower clamp and the stem are square? And if not, how do I correct?
As always your wisdom is appreciated.
roy
Last edited: