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Rear wheel alignment


Xfz

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Does anyone have a good way to make sure that the rear tire is aligned correctly? The original tire wore more on the left side eventhough the swing arm marks appeared correct.:confused:

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Just because your tire wears more on the left side doesnt mean that its out of alignment. The roads are all crowned down hill from center. This is done on purpose to drain water away.

To tell if its out of align, ride it on a straight road and let go of the handlebars, if it doesnt pull one way or the other significantly, its not out of align.

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Nope, the bike is new from Honda. I am going to do a bit of measuring when I get a chance. For now I gave it a 1/4 turn more on the left when the chain was tensioned.

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Just because your tire wears more on the left side doesnt mean that its out of alignment. The roads are all crowned down hill from center. This is done on purpose to drain water away.

To tell if its out of align, ride it on a straight road and let go of the handlebars, if it doesnt pull one way or the other significantly, its not out of align.

or it could be to much weight on one side of the bike need to lever out the weight on the bike lol

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As someone else mentioned, I measure from the swingarm pivot bolt to the rear axle.

You need to find two fixed points to measure from. Using distances from swingarm to tire on either side isn't very accurate, nor are the marks that are factory set on the swingarm.

The motion pro chain alignment tool or using a tape and measuring from pivot to axle are your best options.

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You can line the rear tire axle up with:

The marks on the swingarm/adjuster

The swingarm pivot (which pretty much will be square to the engine/frame)

The chain (which makes the chain and sprockets happy)

The front wheel (hard to do but probably the most accurate except for funky bikes that have one wheel off center from the other)

all work, although there can be problems with each.

What I'm thinking is that none of this type alignment would have caused the off center wear. I've seen road crown wear and cupping on the left side of front tires, but can't really remember having seen it on the rear. Probably because rear tires mostly wear so fast right down the center. A bent swingarm might do it, but I had a slightly bent swingarm on an old scrambler, and it really made no difference. (Other than slightly different transitions between front and rear wheels through left and right corners.)

So I'll go with you're making too many left turns. Logic rules...

edit: the front tire will take longer to show similar road crown type off center wear...

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ReconRat you make good sense. I do love left turns. very comfortable rolling on the throttle as well. May be too tight on the right clip-on. Shit, I got to scrounge up some money for a a couple of track days. That will either kill me or get me comfortable on the right.

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