Any input on weather this picture of my 2011 Wide Glide shows a major wheel alignment problem...Looks as if the rider that had the bike before me just made long left hand turns....lol

 

Wow , nice bike. Tire looks fairly new. A Mertz?
I would check the alignment for sure. Easy to check.

 

In fact, a Fred and Ethyl Mertz...

 

Just because the wheel is towards the L/H side of the fender, doesn't mean it is out of alignment. As long as the wheel is not turned left or right in the swing arm, it is good to go.
BTW Lots of Harleys come from the factory that way.

 

I think he's talking about the wear (dusty part) pattern that is offset to the left of the tire. I had a similar problem, but the rear alignment didn't fix it. I had to adjust the stabilizer link on top of the engine, under the tank. Two and a half turns and it was centered again.

 

What's it feel like? Does it dive to the left when you take your hands off the bars at highway speed?

 

Yep! My money says that is your problem. The driveline, and thus the rear tire, is not vertically square in the frame.

Check out the video on alignment at http://www.glide-pro.com/install/

The production quality of the video may leave a little to be desired but the technical content is right on.

 

Easy way to check it is to buy an inclinometer, or us an app for your iPhone, and see if the brake rotors are at the same angle. I am guessing yours are off by quite a bit. Most hardware stores sell inclinometers, and you can find them with magnetic bases for under $20. Just make sure it is big enough to read to the single degree. The ones inside bubble levels are usually too gross to use for this kind of a job.

 

Harbor Freight has two, one is a needle type for $6, ok but not much good beyond 1 degree. It has a digital one for $27 reads down to tenths of a degree. If remember correctly two turns of my stabilizer equalled 8 tenths of a degree on my digital inclinometer.

I could not find a way to get a wrench in there loosen the locking nut on the stabilizer, so I pulled the whole assembly off (unbolted it from both sides).

Then loosened the lock nut and screwed it 2 turns at a time, locked it down and put it back on until I got the vertical alignment dead on. After you get your new adjustment set, if you have to move the engine brace a whole lot it helps to to mask tape wood blocks the the backbone so you can pry bar the engine brace for one direction. I used an offset wrench for a pry bar to keep off the wires. The other direction you can tape a plywood block to the primary and use a screw jack under to pry up on it. If you're real strong (or don't have to move it too much) you can just pull up on the primary while you drop in and screw the stabilizer to engine brace bolt down.

BTW you need your bike on a lift to do this. Plus I can't imagine doing it without at least lifting the front of the tank (I took mine off). You don't have to read straight up (90*) but just make sure the rear brake disc matches the front brake disk (with the front tire facing straight forward)

Be careful reading the degrees of the front and the back. You need the degree to be on the SAME SIDE as the front reading. I.e. if it's a needle reader the needle needs to be on the same of 90* that the front is. If you had 89* degrees reading left on the front and the back had 89* degrees reading right, you are actually 2 degrees off. With most digtal ones you need the direction of the digits to face the same direction like wise.

If you move the adjustment more than 3 turns (the manual says 5) I would loosen (not remove) the front and rear motor mount bolts, crank the engine (while still on lift) and run for 5 seconds to let mounts adjust position to this new twist. Then retorque bolts to specs.

 

[quote=R_W_B;8937403]...BTW you need your bike on a lift to do this. Plus I can't imagine doing it without at least lifting the front of the tank (I took mine off). You don't have to read straight up (90*) but just make sure the rear brake disc matches the front brake disk (with the front tire facing straight forward)...[/quote]

To be sure the front wheel is dead straight, and it needs to be for this process to be accurate, turn the wheel slightly left and right while observing the angle of the rotor. The angle measurement at the rotor will "peak" when the wheel is straight ahead. As the wheel turns left or right the angle will increase or decrease respectively.

The GlidePro video I referenced earlier will show what I'm talking about if you have any questions with my explanation.