I've dropped the rear wheel on my Road King several times, not paying the dealers anymore for tire replacement. Simple process for me except for, the right side spacer. I spend more time trying to get the spacer inside he swing arm, against the hub, and on the axle, then on the rest of the entire process. It's as if a keep messing with it and suddenly it up just falls into place. Trying to determine if I'm missing something,


I thought about making a shaft that I can put through the wheel and two spacers that will hold everything in place, lower the bike as normal and drive the homemade pilot shaft out with the normal shaft.

 

On my Ultra, with the bike on the lift, getting the rear caliper in place is always the hardest for me. Once I've achieved that, I slowly lower my lift until the tire just touches the floor and things almost line up, and then add or bleed air from the rear shocks to slide in the axle while holding the spacer in place on the tip of my finger. I use the Harley shock pump to add or bleed air from the shocks.

I'd really like to see how a trained HD mechanic does it, but we're never allowed back in the shop to observe.

 

Separate the caliper from the bracket and using a lift to lower the bike - getting everything to link up is a piece of cake.

 

Thanks for the tip on the caliper. I should have mentioned that using the air pump on the shocks moves the swing arm to give me clearance by the left muffler, so I don't have to remove that.

 

I follow the procedure in the manual, no problems. Shortcuts rarely save time.

 

Or you can take out the lower shocks bolts and raise and lower to gain more clearance to get the axle out and in.

 

I put my RK on the lift, a floorjack under the tire, unbolt the shocks. The floorjack allows me to tweak it to get everything lined up.

 

I've looked in the manual, what shortcut? I'm trying to figure out how to keep aligned the left spacer, the wheel, the right spacer, as I lower the swingarm into position. The wheel bearing is recessed in the hub where the right side spacer goes. Meaning no clearance between the hub and the inside of the swingarm.

 

Removing the lower shock bolts is the easiest way I know of doing it. Think that's what the pros do.

 

^^^^This^^^^ I use the floorjack method front and rear.