FIXED. Rear wheel installation

[RonW]

I wrap the hook around the swing arm itself and back on to the strap. I’d be worried about that hook getting wedged and breaking the aluminum mount area.

Well, t'was a great notion at the moment. I've since got some 12-inch straps to loop around the swingarm and attach the longer strap to the loop. Was late at night and only have a basement parking stall. All things have to be put away per apartment rules on top of it. Getting the second side of the tire on the rim was nearly impossible and took over an hour. I sawzalled the old tire off the wheel.

It’s not ideal to strap to the final drive since you are going to remove the drive. Also you would have to take that strap off during final drive alignment. So it just makes no sense to connect there

I moved the strap from the pumpkin to the swingarm to install the shock. Had to. Yea, wasted motion, indeed.

[Chrisj CMA]

Ronw, If you had the weight of the swing arm pumpkin and wheel on that strap connected to the final drive when you torqued the axle nut, I wouldn’t trust the final drive alignment.

[RonW]

I really don't recollect whether I removed the strap from the swingarm after installing the axle in the rear wheel. You mean throwing off the 4-bolt alignment. I do shim up the rear wheel with 2 x 8's though when installing the rear wheel, so probably did unstrap the swingarm as the 2 x 8's supported the wheel and swingarm.


Oddly, I did loop the left swingarm with the opposite end of the strap instead of hooking it to the left shock's lower bracket (pic from my Valk records). I guess the pumpkin bracket was just too good to pass up.

[Chrisj CMA]

Well. Oddly enough. I’d probably rather have a strap on the final drive than have the wheel being shored up with 2x8s.

The wheel needs to be off the ground and the final drive free to flatten or align to the wheel.

I would not ride that bike until the alignment process is done correctly.

[RonW]

The wheel needs to be off the ground and the final drive free to flatten or align to the wheel.

 

Think I left some space between the bottom of the rear wheel and the 2 x 8's to have wiggle room to micro adjust the wheel to the axle. The 2 x 8's are just so I don't have to lift the wheel the full vertical distance elevation wise. Oh, I was just about to pose that question. Whether the rear wheel has to be suspended from the floor when the 4 bolts are tightened. I guess it should. Not shoulda. Good point!

[Chrisj CMA]

Well, hopefully you got everything right and right and a good alignment. I didn’t mean to sound so negative but you made it sound like a cascade of scary errors with certain bad consequences

[Valkpilot]

You mean throwing off the 4-bolt alignment.

No, it's the side to side alignment of drive to the internal spacers, wheel mating surfaces, etc all the way across to the frame and axle nut.

The reason you loosen the four nuts that mount the drive to the swingarm, and tighten them after the axle bolt is torqued, is to allow the final drive to self-adjust and keep the drive and driven splines aligned when you torque the axle.

The only thing the four nuts have to do with alignment is to screw it up if they are already tight and the final drive can't self-align.

Not trying to sound preachy, just feel like the clarification is important.

[RonW]

Roger that.