How stable is your bike?

[longrider1951]

16 hours ago, raysigh said:

This still begs the question though: Why would my chain adjuster bolts be off by 5mm, and the swing arm tick marks off by about 1.3 lines. 

 

There's so many factors that could affect this, but in my mind it could be:

1. My front wheel alignment wasn't perfect.

2. Something else on my bike is bent (forks, frame?) I KIND of doubt this though as there were no signs of any damage from any drops or falls. He had changed the exhaust, but I got the stock exhaust with it. Otherwise, basically all stock. (so he wasn't changing out parts that may have been damaged in a fall). 

Check out this post: 

You're definitely on to something.

[raysigh]

18 hours ago, DewMan said:

Good Luck

 

Does this alignment procedure NOT rely on the forks compressing? Because if the lower tree is suspended by my headlift stand, they cant be compressed downwards.

[raysigh]

4 hours ago, longrider1951 said:

Check out this post: 

You're definitely on to something.

"end of swingarm to chain adjust slide cover" What's he mean by chain adjust slide cover? He doesn't mean the end of the bolt that protrudes outward?

[Pursuvant]

59 minutes ago, raysigh said:

"end of swingarm to chain adjust slide cover" What's he mean by chain adjust slide cover? He doesn't mean the end of the bolt that protrudes outward?

Everybody calls the part the axle goes thru and then that part can slide forward and back moving the axle to adjust the chain, chain adjusting blocks 

Yam built such lousy chain adjusters setup, they call that functional part (#30) the "axle cover", one on each side of bike. Because it is a bottom shelf chain adjusting block, as cheaply done as possible.

Here's what I meant, measure from end of swingarm to that axle cover like this pic.

The axle cover is a chain adjust block done poorly.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Pursuvant

[mossrider]

I slide a rod through the center of the axle and another through the center of the swingarm pivot bolt and measure each side. 

I also have the sprocket clamp/rod guide but it's not quite as accurate and requires some practice to be close. I also made a big caliper to measure each side, center to center of same holes as above.

[raysigh]

40 minutes ago, mossrider said:

I slide a rod through the center of the axle and another through the center of the swingarm pivot bolt and measure each side. 

I also have the sprocket clamp/rod guide but it's not quite as accurate and requires some practice to be close. I also made a big caliper to measure each side, center to center of same holes as above.

I like the rod method a lot - sounds like it would be the easiest to be the most accurate of all the methods I've read of so far.

EDIT: Although I just went to the hardware store and found the 3 foot length rods aren't exactly super straight. The threaded nickle plated ones seemed to be the most true.

Edited September 22, 2020 by raysigh

[raysigh]

Does anyone know the proper way to align the front wheel though since we have a pinch bolt for our steering tube instead of a top bolt?

I have a headlift stand, but unless each compression was also being mirrored by my headlift stand to allow the front forks to compress and self-align (which would be extremely difficult to do), the fork CPR method doesnt work...

I also can't logically figure out how my bike passed the string test with the rear wheel not aligned properly unless something is bent up front ...

Edited September 22, 2020 by raysigh

[shinyribs]

On 9/20/2020 at 11:34 PM, raysigh said:

I believe I've fixed the issue: I noticed the front wheel was slightly facing drivers left. 

So I aligned the rear (which I used the swingarm tickmarks for this).

Then I realigned the front wheel by... Slightly undoing the steering tube clamp (which normally on bikes is a nut on TOP, so it can be undone slightly without the forks and the steering column falling down). I undid it just enough to... hold it I guess (not actually sure what I was supposed to do about this). 

Undid lower triple tree pinch bolts, front fender, front axle and pinch bolt, brake calipers. 

Wheeled the front wheel onto a folded trash bag, and did CPR on the top of the forks about 12 times. Got off really carefully, and hand tightened the steering tube clamp and the rest of the loosened items in their respective order. 

 

Then I ran the string test again, which pissed me off because - if I made the rear wheel line up with the front wheel (and the frame itself just by standing back and looking), they did not line up with tickmarks on each side of the swingarm. Off by at least 1 line. The adjustment bolt lengths protruding outwards were also off.  

However, I trusted the string test with both sidewalls touching on the rears, and about 2.5mm from sidewall to string on all 4 corners of the strong tire (+/-1  to 2mm) 

 

 

Just went for a test ride without all the plastics (because I had to take the tank plastics to get a torque wrench onto the steering column nut), and I believe it's fixed. The bars have a much "heavier" feel like I remember my old CBR600RR had. Much less susceptible to wobble. Obviously if I gave it a good jerk it would kinda wobble but much more difficult than before.

These bikes do have a top nut. It's under the top as usual. They don't have a second nut above the top that clamps the yoke down against the other nut. Instead, the nut is the piece that the yoke clamps to. It's a very nice setup and much more rigid. 

 

I don't want to offend anyone, so I'll go ahead and apologize in advance, but a lot of things are being flung around in here about how Yamaha did a shitty job of this, that and the other ... yet these naysayers don't understand the basic mechanics of how the bike is assembled. Nothing wrong with not knowing, none of us do until we learn. Get your feet under you before you start pointing fingers. Crow doesn't taste good. 

[Pursuvant]

2 hours ago, shinyribs said:

 lot of things are being flung around in here about how Yamaha did a shitty job of this

ShinyRibs I'm going to defer to you and stop the  "bottom bin" parts stuff, it was just coloring the language for fun. Your posts are some of the most interesting and intelligent here and I look forward to all your stuff, so thanks for reminding me to be respectful.

 

 

[shinyribs]

43 minutes ago, Pursuvant said:

ShinyRibs I'm going to defer to you and stop the  "bottom bin" parts stuff, it was just coloring the language for fun. Your posts are some of the most interesting and intelligent here and I look forward to all your stuff, so thanks for reminding me to be respectful.

 

 

You do you, man. Have fun. You ain't hurting nothing. If we all acted the same it'd be boring around here.