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[NetPro]

I know there are several ways to align the rear wheel  and was wondering if anyone can share the way his/her dealer did it.
Was it with a string?
A straight edge?
A caliper type measuring gizmo?
Some high-tech laser thingy?
None of the above?

I got mine done recently but did not watch the mechanic and according to my test, it is a bit off but I am not sure if I  should change it.

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

Following so I can update https://zeromanual.com/wiki/Rear_Wheel_Install with a recommendation. Good point to bring up.

I have a long straight edge, but have also used string. I tend to photograph the alignment notches on each side of the bike before I begin work, and then adjust each side by the same socket rotation angle and number of turns alternating.

I'd bet your alignment is worth tweaking, just to even out wear on the belt and on the tire patch as it rolls. It's possible that misalignment could make the belt "walk" to a side, which could become a problem.


Oh, how did you test your alignment to find it off?

[vinceherman]

Isn't the position of the belt on the rear pulley the alignment test?
When I adjusted the belt tension on my SR/F I had it up on a stand.

• I turned both alignment bolts the same amount to adjust tension.
• Then I keyed up the bike and (nervously) twisted the throttle a bit to let the belt walk to its position.
• Key off the bike and turn just the right alignment bolt.

I repeated steps 2 and 3 until I liked where the belt was on the pulley, slightly less than the thickness of a credit card from the pulley wall.

[NetPro]

Oh, how did you test your alignment to find it off?

I have a 36 in. straight edge machined from aircraft aluminum, sold for woodworking, and I put one end flat against the front sprocket and noticed that as it crosses the rim diagonally, the distance between it and the two points where it crosses in front of the wheel, was not the same.

To me, if it was perfectly aligned, sprocket and cog wheel would be on the same plane, not necessarily in-line but not crooked.

I kind of want to believe this is a way to tell  but am not 100% sure.
It is difficult to do because the sprocket is so small, relatively speaking, but with patience and a little imagination, it is possible.

[Say10 15FX 16FXS]

I use a Motion Pro Chain Alignment Tool. About $15. Clamps on the rear pulley and has a rod that shows the alignment. The factory hash marks aren’t always as accurate as you might think. Don’t spin the wheel with it attached!

[NetPro]

Isn't the position of the belt on the rear pulley the alignment test?
When I adjusted the belt tension on my SR/F I had it up on a stand.

• I turned both alignment bolts the same amount to adjust tension.
• Then I keyed up the bike and (nervously) twisted the throttle a bit to let the belt walk to its position.
• Key off the bike and turn just the right alignment bolt.

I repeated steps 2 and 3 until I liked where the belt was on the pulley, slightly less than the thickness of a credit card from the pulley wall.

I am afraid that this is not the best way to align the wheel.
For starters, it assumes it is already aligned and should be maintained at the present setting. Maybe it is but maybe it isn't.
Due to machining tolerances, some deviations will inevitably be introduced to the cog, wheel, sprocket, fork, motor mount, etc.
And if you try to compensate for that deviation by moving the wheel left or right until the belt is centered, the wheel will not be truly aligned to the front wheel or the motor.
I can tell because that is exactly how I did mine and when I took it in for service to have it recommissioned, the mechanic told me the wheel was not aligned and he fixed it (at least says he did) without even asking me .

Now, as I think about it, I am sure the wheel got positioned out of alignment in trying to make the belt track close --but not touching-- the cog edge.
The truth is, the belt does not respond well to minute adjustments to the wheel and (at least on the SR/F with its tougher belt) is a procedure that leaves you wishing there was another way to do it more precisely.

[NetPro]

Isn't the position of the belt on the rear pulley the alignment test?
When I adjusted the belt tension on my SR/F I had it up on a stand.

• I turned both alignment bolts the same amount to adjust tension.
• Then I keyed up the bike and (nervously) twisted the throttle a bit to let the belt walk to its position.
• Key off the bike and turn just the right alignment bolt.

I repeated steps 2 and 3 until I liked where the belt was on the pulley, slightly less than the thickness of a credit card from the pulley wall.

I am afraid that this is not the best way to align the wheel.
For starters, it assumes it is already aligned and should be maintained at the present setting. Maybe it is but maybe it isn't.
Due to machining tolerances, some deviations will inevitably be introduced to the cog, wheel, sprocket, fork, motor mount, etc.
And if you try to compensate for that deviation by moving the wheel left or right until the belt is centered, the wheel will not be truly aligned to the front wheel or the motor.
I can tell because that is exactly how I did mine and when I took it in for service to have it recommissioned, the mechanic told me the wheel was not aligned and he fixed it (at least says he did) without even asking me .

Now, as I think about it, I am sure the wheel got positioned out of alignment in trying to make the belt track close --but not touching-- the cog edge.
The truth is, the belt does not respond well to minute adjustments to the wheel and (at least on the SR/F with its tougher belt) is a procedure that leaves you wishing there was another way to do it more precisely.

I am going to look into building a mount for one of my laser guides I use for machining, to attach it to the wheel and or the pulley and be able to use accurate technology to accomplish this task.
Time permitting, or course.

[vinceherman]

I am not sure I agree, but that could be my lack of understanding.
I thought that the alignment bolts served 2 functions, setting belt tension and aligning the wheel.
My understanding is that the aligning needs to be done so that the belt tracks in the desired portion of the rear pulley.

Is there more to it than that?
Is there anything else that can be done that would not move the belt out of the desired position on the rear pulley?

[Richard230]

I have not had to adjust my rear tire alignment yet, but when I do it I plan to do so by centering the belt on the rear cogwheel.  I have owned a lot of motorcycles over the past 57 years and hardly any of them came from the dealer with wheels that were perfectly inline.  This is especially true of older motorcycles with steel tube frames and variable building methods at the factory.  (Like my Royal Enfield.)  Take it from me, unless the wheel alignment is way out of whack, it is unlikely that the rider will notice the difference in steering or tire wear.

I have the Motion Pro chain alignment tool and that device is only designed to align the rear wheel with the engine sprocket. That is what I use to align my rear wheels and it seems to work well enough for me. I might add that for years I aligned my rear wheel by measuring the distance from the center of the swing arm shaft with the center of the axle on both sides of the bike and that always seemed to work very well.  I have also found that the swing arm marks on the axle adjusters were usually fairly accurate, although there have been exceptions, such as the marks on my F650GS, which were (relatively) way off.   

Sometimes the design of the motorcycle will actually have the rear wheel offset slightly from the front wheel for some random reason, perhaps due to left and right side weight of the vehicle, and they still manage to roll down the road with hardly anyone noticing.

[BamBam]

I tend to agree with Vinceherman that it is more important to get the belt aligned properly.  That's how I do my rear wheel alignment and it seems to work fine.  I  leave about a millimeter gap between the belt edge and the outer lip on the rear sprocket.

[NetPro]

I am not sure I agree, but that could be my lack of understanding.
I thought that the alignment bolts served 2 functions, setting belt tension and aligning the wheel.
My understanding is that the aligning needs to be done so that the belt tracks in the desired portion of the rear pulley.

Is there more to it than that?
Is there anything else that can be done that would not move the belt out of the desired position on the rear pulley?

This is my first bike with a belt so I am learning how to deal with them
It is much harder to try and explain the steps I took than actually doing it but I will try.
I am basing my statements on my own experience and a bit of reading on how to adjust the belt and align the wheel, done on this forum and elsewhere. Totally unscientific.

This is how things started:
A couple of months ago I put the bike on a stand and tried to adjust the belt to go a bit away from the cogwheel, as it was almost touching it.
No matter what I did, it was impossible to attain this goal. Even though I went extremely slow with the adjustments, I could never get the belt to the holy-grail distance of about 1 mm.
It would not move at all (while wheel being driven by the motor) as I adjusted left or right bolt, until at one point, just turning the bolt one last "hair" then it would kind of jump all the way in the direction I was trying to move it JUST A LITTLE.

I played extensively with this trying to fully understand the dynamics of it but no matter what, it kept doing this. Really tight or kind of loose belt made no difference.

So, my take at the time was that the wheel had quite a range of adjustment to track it properly, without affecting the belt position as it drives the wheel. It felt like it was almost self centering, if you did not mind that it ran very close to the cogwheel edge. Not rubbing on it, just a few thousands of an inch away from it.

So, after adjusting the tension one more time, I adjusted the wheel to what looked to me to be the center of the range where the belt just suddenly jumps away and go way too far in the direction you are moving it to.

Then, the next thing is when I took the bike for recommissioning and the mechanic determined the wheel was not properly adjusted, and set it using whatever technique they have for doing so.

It is important to note that my cogwheel has quite a bit of sway and when you measure with a straight edge against the front sprocket on one point and turn the wheel half a turn, you can see the difference.
Maybe this has something to do with my experiment failing but there is no way I can adjust that, (this is poor machining) unless I determine how thick of a washer I needed to make and insert in at least 4 or 5 of the mount points of the cogwheel to the wheel.
The sway did not affect the belt's tension for the most part. Just to be clear, with the bike on a stand, if you rotate the wheel and have a fixed point of reference almost touching the cogwheel edge you'll see it come close to the point during the turn and go a bit away the other half.

If I had a huge lathe I could try and machine the "mounting points" to correct this variation but my lathe can't handle parts that large.

I do agree that making the belt track about 1 mm from the edge of the cogwheel trumps the tire alignment, but it didn't work on my bike and I spent quite a bit of time trying.

[vinceherman]

NetPro,
I did experience some of what you are describing, but a little less so.
I wonder if your axle was loose enough to allow the wheel to move freely when you turned the alignment bolts.
I am only guessing, but it sounds like your movement of the alignment bolt was not actually moving the wheel until something else happened, and then the wheel moved a lot.

Do keep in mind that I am not a mechanic.  And I am trying to learn the same way you are - reading a lot and trying things out.

[ESokoloff]

Isn't the position of the belt on the rear pulley the alignment ......?
...............

That’s how I see it. 

Here’s my notes on my thoughts/procedures on belt tensioning my 2016 DSR.


20-30KG
Jacking left screw(bolt) out (adding tension) moves the belt to the right.
Best to get the belt in the correct position (left/right) then adjust tension.
NOTE: Position belt with a right side biases as it will shift to the left when the axle bolt is tightened.     
Must use rolling head prybar to pry the right side towards its jack-screw (or just Smack the tire/rim in the desired direction)
Spin the wheel several times after an adjustment to allow the belt to settle down & find its new position.
NOTE: 1/6 turn of Left jack screw appears to cause a 10KG difference to tension.
Use 1-1/16" socket to tension axle nut to 102NM (75#/') when compleat (I don't have the correct Metric socket but found that 1-1/16" is close enough to work).
P.S.  Recomend first removing each Jack bolt & grinding down the raised print on the heads to prevent digging into the soft aluminum of the swing arm.
Also apply some anti-seize to the threads before re-installing.