So i've had my 500F for almost 3 years. I bought it lightly used and have put about 4,000 miles on it. All in all its been a great first bike expirience.
On sunday during a ride and a hard brake, i felt a little wiggle that really freaked me out. after i started looking for this feeling i felt like the bike had become unstable. i even pullled over because i thought i had a flat rear tire. the rear tire almost felt like it was greased and would almost kick out when accelerating from a stop.
after a little research I realised i hadnt done chain tension or rear tire alignment for about 3250 miles. (and i didnt do it correctly to begin with). read quite a few posts last night about properly setting tension and alignment and realized i never kicked the tire to get the right side to reseat before.
so last night i bought some 30lbs test line (string method) and went to wrench on the bike. i realized my rear tire was WAY out of alignment, but my chain was only slightly out of spec. ( ~1.4in of play). while reusing the axel bolt cotter pin last night (I know you're not supposed to) it broke. right at 850 pm so i couldnt go buy a new one to test it.
bought a new today, and with my newly aligned rear tire and tightened chain...WOW what a difference. shifting is so smooth now and it just felt like it was more balanced. I'm not really sure what caused it to suddenly feel way off, but i'm happy it was a realtively easy fix.
wanted to say thanks GS Twins for posting up your problems and answering them!
glad it worked out for ya :thumb: :thumb:
I am glad you fixed your problem.
Please let me ask you a couple (hopefully) easy questions:
1. Loosen the axle nut - exactly how loose? If you don't loosen it enough then turning the adjust screws will not work (right?). If you loosen the axle nut too much, then when you tighten the axle nut will you lose your alignment (really?)
2. While tightening the axle nut, the brackets marking the gradations seemed to move a bit. does it matter?
3. One of my adjuster plates (the plate on the end, just inside of the adjuster screw) is loose. Does that mean my axle is not as far back as it can be?
My sprockets looked to be inline by visual inspection of the lay of the chain.
Riding felt ok to me. I think I must have my bike reasonably aligned.
I was going to try the string test, but it seemed like it was just going to confuse me even more (what if string test adjustments result in the gradations being off by more than 1?). Seems like some of the advice on the internet is conflicting, and a noob can't tell who knows their stuff and who just thinks they know their stuff.
I tried searching these forums and google, but I think I need to try the alignment with someone who has done it before.
thanks
Quote from: sankyo on May 20, 2009, 04:17:31 PM
I am glad you fixed your problem.
Please let me ask you a couple (hopefully) easy questions:
1. Loosen the axle nut - exactly how loose? If you don't loosen it enough then turning the adjust screws will not work (right?). If you loosen the axle nut too much, then when you tighten the axle nut will you lose your alignment (really?)
2. While tightening the axle nut, the brackets marking the gradations seemed to move a bit. does it matter?
3. One of my adjuster plates (the plate on the end, just inside of the adjuster screw) is loose. Does that mean my axle is not as far back as it can be?
My sprockets looked to be inline by visual inspection of the lay of the chain.
Riding felt ok to me. I think I must have my bike reasonably aligned.
I was going to try the string test, but it seemed like it was just going to confuse me even more (what if string test adjustments result in the gradations being off by more than 1?). Seems like some of the advice on the internet is conflicting, and a noob can't tell who knows their stuff and who just thinks they know their stuff.
I tried searching these forums and google, but I think I need to try the alignment with someone who has done it before.
thanks
Well...I'm a Noob, so take this advice coming from a noob.
1) first i loosened the axel way to much. spent all the time straitening it out and after i torqued it back down it was off by A LOT. (over a notch on the one side).
so when i undid it the second time, i un-loosned it, aligned it, tightned it a bit, checked again, adjusted, repeated until i fellt like there was to much resistance and i may bust the adjusting cap.
2) everyone on here says yes. i'm a noob, but i lined mine up using the graduation marks, and it was WAY better than it was before. I feel like if Suzuki says it should work then it should, but at the very least it was a good starting point for the string test. I was going to use the string to finalize but had clearance issues with side and center stands (and fairings and basically everything else.
3) yeah...this is where i messed up last time. I'm assuming you're talking about the brake disk side... so here's a trick: loosen up the adjusting bolt so it is way loose. (1/4 - 1/2 inch) while on the side stand, put the bike into 1st, grab the sissy bar, and kick the back of the tire hard....again, then one last time. (i'm a little guy). if you bend down and look you'll see the plate is still loose, but has pushed forward at least 1 or 2 notches. now you can tighten up to even it out with the sprocket side.
I hope this helps.
thanks for your response. makes sense. I'll give it another try this weekend.