:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: Just kidding about welding the axle in place, but there does seem to be a problem here. We have seen the reports of the bent adjuster plates on the ends of the swingarms and now I'm having the opposite problem, my axle is going south instead of north.
Some time after installing my RoadAttack rear tire a couple months ago, I discovered the rear axle had slipped back on the right side (rotor side). I've tightened rear axle bolts for 22 years and 350k miles and never used a torque wrench and never had this problem so I thought perhaps I had just left it a bit looser than usual that time. A senior moment? I got it realigned again and retightened the axle bolt nut somewhat tighter than I normally do.
Well it slipped again Monday, same thing, back on the right side. Noticed a bit of funny movement in the bike while rear braking firmly in a right turn and when I checked the rear wheel, sure enough it was turned a bit to the right with a space between the loose adjuster plate and swing arm on right side. Sudden rear wheel steering input in a turn is a bit annoying.
I'm gonna align and tighten it again today and tightened it even tighter. Gotta pick up a 3/8 to 1/2" adapter to use my 7/8", 22mm six point socket on my 3/8" drive torque wrench. I'm thinking we all should be tightening the GS rear axles to the max of about 60 ft/lbs or 80 Nm figures. Those figures for cotter pin type nuts, even higher figures for self locking nut type.
Can it be that HH rear pads with a sticky rear tire are too much rear braking force for the GS to handle?
Since you can get the rear tire to lock up with any type of pad it's mostly a question of the sticky tire. But then, the design should have enough safety margin to handle a real sticky tire locking up.
Could be that Suzuki really f00ked something up with the chain adjuster design on the newer GSses.
I had problems with the sprocket side of my rear wheel slipping forwards under hard acceleration. I would like to think that the GS motor just puts out UnGodly amounts of power and no axle could ever compete...but I somehow feel that is not true.
I have been tightening my axle bolt to much higher values than 60 ft-lbs to correct this. I'm likely somewhere near 100 ft-lbs at the moment and no slipping. It seems like a band-aid solution, but it has worked much better thus far.
-Turd.
why you people gotta put doubt in my head.....
Jack?
First thing I would be looking at is the condition of the threads. Is there a chance of them being worn or stretched or strained, either on the axlebolt itself or in the nut? I know you have had the wheel on and off a number of times to change all those tyres. I think it could be a real possibility and worth a careful look.
Jack?
Some further thoughts......appologies if I am posing an obvious question to you but I take it you have the bolt fitted the correct way i.e with the nut on the L/H side as you sit on the bike?
Thanks for the input Sledge, but the culprit has been found. A bad wheel brg on the disc side. I had aligned and tightened it up and headed out again this afternoon only to limp back home after it started making all kinds of loud and wierd noises.
The overtightened and well cottered axle nut was loose again so I tore it all apart and found the destroyed brg, it was a most unusual happening. Seems spacer #9 on this diagram was missing. Must have been left out when the last rear tire was mounted and balanced about 2500 miles back. The axle nut tightening clamp load must have been carried thru the right wheel brg and the much larger cush drive brg on the left side, it's surprising it went that many miles and thru a couple extra tighenings before getting that bad. That should all tighten up thru the spacers and brg inner races w/o sideloading the brgs that way. I took the wheel in for mtg and bal but I should have caught it when I remounted the wheel on the bike.
http://images.powersportsnetwork.com/fiche/images/Suzuki/2001/Motorcycles/2102_52.gif
Yeah.... I see whats happened, axial preloading of the bearing, the inner race being forced out of alignment with the outer race. Sorted :thumb:
Was a really nice day out yesterday with today to be same and a few more coming next week. This time of year here in NE Ohio it's hard to pass up nice days for riding to work on the bike since the snow will surely be flying soon.
So I pulled the wheel from my old 97 GS yesterday morning and put it on the 02 GS and was out riding by afternoon. Will get the 02 wheel with my sticky Road Attack tire fixed up and back on before spring. The 97 wheel has a decent AV36 tire on it with some miles left so it'll do for the slow season. :)