Alignment issue
 

Hey guys,

What aday. First day to dismantle both front and backwheel to get new TKC 70's installed. All went well and mounted my tires.

Today I drive to work and the bike slings a bit to the left. When I corner it is as if I die because it doesn't corner safely. I think the front wheel is misaligned.

So I checked tires and the a re fit the correct way.
The backtire is also aligned well enough with the markers.
Front tire I closed the front axle at 60 nm and then pushed the forks up and down sitting on the bike to align it. After that I closed the clamp bolts that hold down the axle at 18 nm.

Only mistake I think I made is after pushing the forks the bike as put back on his side stand. I think this made the misalignment again. Could it be ? It drives like a disaster now -_-

Yes, it could be. Try again, but standing on the right side, apply front brake and push down on the handlebar couple times. With left hand keep the bike upright, pull out the wrench from your right pocket :icon_smile: and tighten the pinch bolts.
Before that, check the right fork for small movement over the axle. If needed apply a small amount of grease.

Don't trust the markings on your swing arm for rear wheel alignment. You can buy a motion pro chain alignment tool cheaply for accurate measurement.

Or by eye can be quite easy once you're used to it.

Okay guys,

Today I put the back side of the bike on a centerstand. so the bike is straight I assume and I re-did the alignment. I spinned the back tire and it doesn't seem like it is miss aligned and it spins very easily and seems alright. yes I used my swingarm markings but I think the tire should be fine personally.

Then the front side I changed 5 times. Each time loosening only the front clamp bolts and re-aligning the wheel every time ! It drives a bit better having done this but still when I want to take a left corner it kinda acts different then the right corners so it doesn't feel the same like before.

I have no idea how to solve it. How hard can it be to re align the bike ?
When I stand up I do notice that the front tire has a wobble in it. Could this be from the bad alignment ?

With wobble I mean that the tire thread wobbles from left t oright and so does the tire slightly. It gives vibration thought and is noticeable at already 30 km/h visually. Is the tire wrong or is this alignment ? Im a bit confused ..

I greased everything up. the whole axle and the inside of the spacers and then tighetened it up and loosened it like you did, putting bike on paddock stand also so it is straight and stand on it and push the forks several times still nothing, as mentioned in my last post here the tires seems to have a wobble in it maybe it isn't fitted well on the bike ??? I will make video today about it.

Also to add , motion pro bought. Good tool not cheap but good for on road fixes and not so much hassle for the back wheel then :) !

is the tyre seated in the rim correctly?..is it balanced?..

I assume it does , how do I check this ? I went to a Yamaha dealer and had it balanced there ...

I just found this paraphrase :

Don't know why it didn't dawn on me before...

This sort of problem usually stems from trying to align the forks with the standard mudguard still attached to the forks. The guard is quite stiff and springy and tends to splay the fork legs outwards. You should always at least loosen all the mudguard bolts when aligning forks or better still, remove the mudguard completely to take it out of the equation. This applies to all bikes with guards mounted to the fork legs. I remember now that I could never get mine aligned with the guard in place; not an issue now with a high guard as it's mounted to the bottom yoke.


-----> I will loosen the mudguard and try to bounce the forks again while on paddockstand on the rear wheel and then close the clamp bolts again and see if it solves it. the question is: The wobble you visually see while driving ( stand up and look at front tire while driving ) : is it due to alignment or COULD IT BE from the axle or is it definitly the tire that is faulty ??? Cause in that case I can try as much as I want it wont help :P ....

Alright guys,

Nothing works. The handling isn't what it should be as before and doesn't feel right and the wobble isn't going away. I think this is a TKC 70 issue again or I am massively failing at aligning the front wheel. I have tried everything mentioned above and nothing does it so that's my conclusion. I'll be going to the Yamaha dealer later today after work and see what they have to say about it. I hope its not the tire because that would be a disaster then I need new ones AGAIN and I am almost leaving on a holiday !

If you still have your old tire, maybe mounting her back will help to find the reason? And just firing in the dark, is it possible to install spacers on the axle in wrong way?

Check that the tyre is correctly seated on the rim. There is a small bead which should be evenly spaced between the rim outer and itself. I say this because I had a similar slow speed wobble on my Ten, but recently had a puncture. I obvoiusly repaired the inner tube and reseated the tyre using WD40 as I was in a field miles away from anywhere. I used my small air pump powered by my bike and at around 40psi the bead seated perfectly and the slow speed wobble has gone.

Hope this helps.
Steve