Frontend allignment

[Junior]

So it seems that my spill Sunday twisted my front end pretty good. It feels like the front and rear arn`t tracking the same . I know the bars are alittle bend but, the bike just feels bad. I grab the handelbar an praced the tire with my legs and twisted it back a bitt. It still don`t feel right . Any tips on this?

[biffer99]

loosen the triples, re-align forks?

[Grady]

loosen the triples, re-align forks?

+1

[Rut Row]

Biffer is right - I have to do that myself. Just haven't gotten around to it.

And I'm hoping the bent look to the bars is just the fork out of alignment.

[Wingfixer]

Yeah, loosen the axle bolts and all the triple clamp bolts, hold the front brake and work the front end through as much travel as you can (bounce it up and down). Also, bent handle bars can make the bike feel like its all jikked up because your hands want to be even. Kathy's 2fiddy had bent bars on it and I could hardly ride the thing until I put a new one on it, she couldn't believe the difference either.

[Roadracer_Al]

Here's my secret weapon for aligning forks in the triples: plate glass. You'll have to buy a piece that fits your forks - measure first.

Get your bike up on a crate so the wheel's off the ground and the forks turn freely. Remove the wheel and anything else that prevents access to the male part of the fork tubes. On Right Side Up forks, that's the part that clamps in the triples. On Up Side Down forks, that's the part near the axle.

Lay the plate glass across the male part of the forks, and check to see that it lays flat - stand in front of the bike and using a thumb and forefinger, put your fingers on each corner of the glass and gently see if it rocks. If the glass rocks at all, or even makes a ticking sound, the forks can be aligned better.

As mentioned above, basically you need to loosen everything, but leave it snug so your stuff doesn't fall apart - axle, pinch bolts, top triple nut, (on street bikes, the bolts that hold the fender on), etc. Then use a light rubber mallet to move the top clamp in relation to the bottom clamp. Check frequently with the glass as you're tightening, and I'd recommend tightening the bolts 1/4 turn at a time on each bolt, going around like you'd do a cylinder head or car lug nuts.

[OldmanX]

Here's my secret weapon for aligning forks in the triples: plate glass. You'll have to buy a piece that fits your forks - measure first.

Get your bike up on a crate so the wheel's off the ground and the forks turn freely. Remove the wheel and anything else that prevents access to the male part of the fork tubes. On Right Side Up forks, that's the part that clamps in the triples. On Up Side Down forks, that's the part near the axle.

Lay the plate glass across the male part of the forks, and check to see that it lays flat - stand in front of the bike and using a thumb and forefinger, put your fingers on each corner of the glass and gently see if it rocks. If the glass rocks at all, or even makes a ticking sound, the forks can be aligned better.

As mentioned above, basically you need to loosen everything, but leave it snug so your stuff doesn't fall apart - axle, pinch bolts, top triple nut, (on street bikes, the bolts that hold the fender on), etc. Then use a light rubber mallet to move the top clamp in relation to the bottom clamp. Check frequently with the glass as you're tightening, and I'd recommend tightening the bolts 1/4 turn at a time on each bolt, going around like you'd do a cylinder head or car lug nuts.

Glass...that's interesting. Regular tempered glass? Any preference as to a particular thickness?

[Roadracer_Al]

Nope, nothing special, just regular float glass.

However, I except that thick glass won't break as easily and will be easier to handle in general.

[mdubya]

A couple of thoughts, probably too late:

Don't loosen both triple clamps at the same time or the whole front end will collapse. Loosen the lower only at first. If it doesn't immediately re-align, twist on it a bit.

If that doesn't fix it, torque that one back down and loosen the top clamp and the axle pinch bolts. Either of those combinations should get you close enough.

If the bar mounts bolt on as opposed to molded into the top clamp they could be twisted too.

Al, what are you supposed to do with the glass? Look through it?

[Roadracer_Al]

On my method, I should have mentioned that the bike needs to be on a box/stand so there is no weight on the front end. As Mdubya correctly points out, don't loosen the bolts all the way, just leave them snug.

Mdubya, the glass serves as a "reference surface" to compare the fork tubes to for parallelism. Think of the behavior of a chair if you saw one leg short, you get a diagonal rocking. That's what you're trying to feel for with the glass plate. If the glass rocks, the forks are not parallel. Adjust the triple clamps until the glass doesn't have any diagonal rocking.

Furthermore, you should use the biggest piece of glass that will fit on the shiny part of the male fork tube.