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Rear Wheel Alignment Jigs and Gadgets

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Written by Randy Fox (Randysgym)   
Saturday, 13 September 2008

Pulley Jigs

 

Rear Wheel Alignment, Belt Adjustment, pulley jig, tools, Yamaha Road Star

 

This method uses the fact that the bike's front drive-pulley is precisely parallel to the bike's frame and line of travel.

Rear wheel alignment, therefore, should just be a matter of setting the rear wheel parallel to the front pulley. Since the rear pulley is parallel with the rear wheel, alignment can be achieved by aligning the rear pulley to the front pulley.

First the front pulley cover must be removed. To do this, remove the swing-arm bracket and the front pulley cover from the left-side of the bike, rearward of the clutch. This cover has no gasket. Be sure to keep track of which screws/bolts go where.

As you take the cover free, notice the placement of the two, white, nylon roller/retainers. Store them, or discard them; see tip below.

Tip: Many owners eliminate the nylon rollers completely. Yamaha designed them to keep the drive belt in place, even if it becomes very loose. Mostly, however, they just encourage debris and rocks to find a place to collect and possibly cause trouble--in my opinion.

To align the front pulley to the rear pulley, ideally, a precise straight-edge would be placed along the outside edge of the front pulley, and back along the outside edge of the rear pulley. Then you could simply see if the rear pulley lays absolutely flat against the straight-edge.

I said, "ideally," because a simple straight-edge can not lay along side both pulleys; the frame and swing-arm are in the way. In reality, the straight-edge must have cutouts to avoid those obstructions -- forming the straight-edge into an elongated 'E' shape.

Furthermore, the straight-edge must be wide and/or thick enough to remain rigid in its cut-away section. Quarter inch aluminum, steel or even glass plate will work well. An online buddy of mine, Mike Wilson (rat 700, mwilson298 on the Delphi forums) made his from reinforced plastic.

Mike's high-tech version of this straight-edge tool/gadget is shown in the third diagram below. The first diagram shows the raw material dimensions. The second diagram shows the more standard, but still potentially accurate, 'E' shaped version of this tool.

 

Rear Wheel Alignment, Belt Adjustment, pulley jig, tools, Yamaha Road Star

 

As you can see, Mike's design differs from the description above. Instead of a rear straight-edge segment for the rear pulley, Mike extended his cutaway all the way to the end. In other words, it's 'L' shaped. See photo below.

 

Rear Wheel Alignment, Belt Adjustment, pulley jig, tools, Yamaha Road Star

 

Since there are only two contact points for the rear pulley, Mike's design incorporates two dial indicators, which have been set to read zero when parallel is achieved. See closeup photo below.

 

Rear Wheel Alignment, Belt Adjustment, pulley jig, tools, Yamaha Road Star

 

Some would consider Mike's design over-kill, but none would argue its precision or ease of use.

A few owners prefer to measure the distance from their 'L' shaped straight-edge to the forward-and-trailing edges of the rear pulley using calipers instead of dedicating two dial indicators. This will work fine, assuming the long segment of the 'L' has been made to be precisely parallel to the segment that rests against the front pulley.

Whether or not you decide to build an 'E' or 'L' shaped straight-edge, adjustment is performed the same way. Adjust the rear axle's right side rearward (adjuster bolt screwed IN), for either of the following two measurements:

  • If your straight-edge is 'L' shaped, and the rear pulley's forward reading is less (closer to your straight-edge) than the rearward reading
  • If your straight-edge is 'E' shaped, and there is a gap at the rearward point of the rear pulley

Of course, if you have the opposite condition, screw the right-side axle adjuster OUT, to push the axle forward.

 

 

 
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