motor allignment
I'm now ready to swap out my original stock tranny for a 1999 gearset in a newer case and ready to move forward. As time permitted today I'm as far as pulling the inner primary and ready to pull the tranny. Graham I have looked on page 2-33 and its heading is vehicle Allignment pointing toward allignment off the swingarm to the rear axle which I have done in the past and will have to be done again after the replacement gearbox is in place. I'm not seeing anything pertaining to installing a motor and gearbox though although the process is in another section. Am I missing something here as far as ensuring that the motor is straight up and down?
Lynn, the first part of that section describes rear wheel alignment, on pages 2-33/34, but on page 2-35 goes on to alignment of the power-train in the frame.
There are three planes:
There are three planes:
- horizontal as viewed from the side, which we can do nothing about, as the power-train is located at the rear by the swingarm axle and at the front by the front rubber mount;
- sideways alignment as viewed from above and illustrated by Figure 2-37;
- vertical alignment as viewed from the front (or rear!), as illustrated by Figure 2-38.
Sorry for this sorta off topic post but I didn't know that there is an alignment of the motor and trans. I always thought it all just bolts on and nothing more to it,please excuse my lack of knowledge.
That is another reason I prefer Softails!!!!
The original rubber-mount models are pretty smart things!
ok now that I got the seals install done as per the 2 service bulletins for primary and jackshaft seals.
Now with inner torqued down to tranny the inner to motor is way the heck out of wack.
At present-
- I have drive belt still loosened off
- swing arm shaft is torqued
-2 motor mount bolts are into tranny but loose
-rear allignment isn't done yet which I figure cant be done until inner to motor is torqued in place
- motor to upper motor mount bolt is out
- lower adjuster bolts are out and I'm about to pull the centre bolt out of the rubber lower motor mount
Not exactley sure how to go about this yet, do rear allignment swing arm to rear axle?
A bit confused how if motor rear 2 bolts to tranny are in place how can the motor be twisted toward the primary side to close up the gap by simply loosening off motor mounts? I mean aren't the rear motor to tranny bolts keeping it from twisting?
Now with inner torqued down to tranny the inner to motor is way the heck out of wack.
At present-
- I have drive belt still loosened off
- swing arm shaft is torqued
-2 motor mount bolts are into tranny but loose
-rear allignment isn't done yet which I figure cant be done until inner to motor is torqued in place
- motor to upper motor mount bolt is out
- lower adjuster bolts are out and I'm about to pull the centre bolt out of the rubber lower motor mount
Not exactley sure how to go about this yet, do rear allignment swing arm to rear axle?
A bit confused how if motor rear 2 bolts to tranny are in place how can the motor be twisted toward the primary side to close up the gap by simply loosening off motor mounts? I mean aren't the rear motor to tranny bolts keeping it from twisting?
I got the inner primary torqued down to the motor and motor to tranny is torqued.Once I pulled the two motor mount bolts that go through the motor casing and into the bracket the motor pretty much dropped and was able to move it in place for the inner primary to motor to lineup.
I did the rear wheel allignment and checked front wheel to rear wheel allignment with an 8 foot floresant litebulb with the bike leaning on its sidestand and doing the check on the right side , lineup of front to back looked good.
Now I need to deal with the motor mount allignments I guess by first doing somemore reading and some adjustments. Going to go over 97 Dyna lowriders instructions again they seem to be in a bit more understandable english than the service manual.
You can see how far out the top motor mount is,hard to believe.



I did the rear wheel allignment and checked front wheel to rear wheel allignment with an 8 foot floresant litebulb with the bike leaning on its sidestand and doing the check on the right side , lineup of front to back looked good.
Now I need to deal with the motor mount allignments I guess by first doing somemore reading and some adjustments. Going to go over 97 Dyna lowriders instructions again they seem to be in a bit more understandable english than the service manual.
You can see how far out the top motor mount is,hard to believe.



Last edited by RidemyEVO; May 9, 2015 at 10:09 PM.
The bolts I'm talking about are (number 6) in the diagram. There the main bolts that bolt in vertically into the mount plate through the engine case. you will also remove the bolt (number 14) from that link (number 32) to disconnect it from the mount also. With everything loose when you bolt up the inner primary it should pull the motor as you bolt the inner primary to the trans. That inner primary is what aligns everything. Once the inner primary is bolted up. You tighten the bolts in between the motor and trans. Then the front bolts (numbers 6) once all those bolts are tight the motor and trans will be locked into position.as far as streight up and down. As long as your front and rear rotors are parallel then you just bolt the top stabilizer up and you are good. If the stabilizer bolt don't go back in without rocking the top of the motor. you need to adjust the top stabilizer utill the rear rotor is parallel to within 1 degree of the front rotor.
It is a pain in the ***.
It is a pain in the ***.
said "As long as your front and rear rotors are parallel then you just bolt the top stabilizer up and you are good. If the stabilizer bolt don't go back in without rocking the top of the motor. you need to adjust the top stabilizer untill the rear rotor is parallel to within 1 degree of the front rotor."Not sure what you mean by adjusting the top stabilizer until rear rotor is within 1 degree of front rotor? Wouldn't I simply adjust top stabilizer so the stabilizer eye end lines up for bolt to fall through?
Thanks
Lynn, I suspect on the production line that the engine/trans assembly is built up into a single solid unit, then installed in the frame. In your case the engine/trans/primary also need to be bolted up into a single 'solid' unit. No need to remove everything from the frame, but those parts need to be free to move, so that as you tighten everything up they can come together as the previous parts did, with no gaps. If they won't do that then something ain't quite right. There's no point continuing IMHO, with assembly, alignment etc, until that gap is sorted out.
Lynn, I suspect on the production line that the engine/trans assembly is built up into a single solid unit, then installed in the frame. In your case the engine/trans/primary also need to be bolted up into a single 'solid' unit. No need to remove everything from the frame, but those parts need to be free to move, so that as you tighten everything up they can come together as the previous parts did, with no gaps. If they won't do that then something ain't quite right. There's no point continuing IMHO, with assembly, alignment etc, until that gap is sorted out.
I read the first page of the bagger wobble exposed, wish I had the time to go through the rest of the 52 pages. As you know I already have the TT swing arm kit, sure makes assembly and disassembly a breeze.
What do you think?
Last edited by RidemyEVO; May 10, 2015 at 08:59 AM.









