I'm going to post this as a separate question rather than in my main build thread....


So, I am thinking about putting the rear fender on, but looking at the rear wheel, it's won't be centred in the fender.

As I have been building this bike I think I have been pretty careful with aligning everything. To start with, I aligned the motor and transmission. Then when I put the rear wheel on, I made sure the secondary chainline was aligned:



The rear wheel itself seems to be well aligned with the centre of the frame - check out the lovely pink string:



But - the wheel doesn't sit in the middle of where the fender will be!



It's difficult to see from the photos, but if I measure between the inside of the fender strut and the outside of the tire, the spacing is about half an inch on the left and an inch and a half on the right. So it's going to look a bit strange with the fender on and the wheel appearing to sit an inch to the left in the fender.

So - is this normal? I didn't notice this when I bought the bike - but maybe I just wasn't paying attention.....

 

1/4 to 1/2" off center is very common on some models...1" seems excessive...will the fender even fit with it that far off?


Sure looks like you have more than 1/2" on the left.

 

Tom,

I think the fender will fit just fine - but the wheel will look too far over too the left. There is a bit more than 1/2" on the left, but the angle of the photo makes it look larger.

Measuring from the inside of the upper shock mount studs to the centre of the wheel and the wheel is pretty much smack in the middle - there's less than 1/8" difference.

I think the fender struts themselves must be bent, but I need a longer straight edge to really be sure....

 

You can shim the struts with washers to get them more parallel with the wheel,

 

I'm thinking it's the struts also,measure from swing arm, wheel shouldn't be centered dead on according to my manual,slightly offset. Tweak your struts as Tom said to make fender align better.

 

Well, after a bit of judicious pressure on the fender struts to realign, everything looks much better! The licence plate holder is a good indication of where the fender will sit and it seems the tyre is now pretty damn central with it.







OK - panic over! Regular programming will resume shortly.....