The belt on my '93 FLSTC rides just like the O.P.

 

Its crazy that you would have to do that to get the wheel aligned. I didn’t check my alignment by either method, but I did the tension adjustment several more times, I even went and bought another 36mm socket to make sure the weld nut didn’t move when I did the final torque on the right side (I will be ordering a couple torque adapters for next time though). Each time I ended up with the same results, with the belt landing exactly like it does in the picture, and with the deflection set right around 1/2”. And the belt rides straight while spinning the wheel by hand. I’ll test ride tomorrow and hopefully it’s ok but definitely something I’m going to keep an eye on.
Can you tell me the specific process you’re using to check your alignment, or provide a link ? Thanks

 

Yea wouldn't mind checking the alignment somehow. I always check the belt from time to time but I notice if I take my hands off the bars the bike seems to go slightly left. When hands on the bars shes perfectly straight. Not sure whats up with that. Not a huge deal but seems a bit odd.

 

Ok..admit it! Who all went out to their bike to look at the rear sprocket to belt alignment? I did…and here’s mine on my ‘17 Limited with 30,000 miles with 3 rear tire changes.

 

That makes me feel a little better about mine

 

On your touring bike,
- Remove the plastic covers from frame at the swingarm pivot (by the passenger peg mount)
- Then measure from the center of the pivot bolt, to the center of the axel, on both sides. The measurements should be the same.

You can tape pointers on a yard stick to make it easier to measure.

 

Wow pretty simple I will check it and post the results just for the heck of it. Much appreciated

 

can see where it is pretty easy now. was thinking those cams were independent but both move at the same time when the welded nut is turned.

 

I just wanted to post an update and see if anyone else has run into what I did. I ended up ordering a couple wrenches off amazon and between waiting for them and work, I hadn’t had a chance to work on the bike until today (been raining pretty much every day anyhow). Anyway, the wrenches ended up being useless. I don’t know if it’s because of my slip ons (Rineharts) or my shocks (ProAction), but the wrenches were too thick with my mufflers on, and they were to big in diameter to fit between the nut and the shock mount. They were cheap-about 15 bucks each- so I said f*** it and figured I’d make em fit. I got the grinder out and ground one outside edge down to fit between the shock and I also ground the face of one of the wrenches to reduce the overall thickness (for some reason the weld nut or left side didn’t need the thickness reduced, it fit with just the edge ground). Anyway I got them to where I could get one on each side and there was a lot of slop in the wrenches, like when you have a standard size wrench on a metric nut or vice versa-total garbage, so I would recommend to not buy this brand, Sporthfish I’ll post a pic so y’all can see what they look like.
Anyway, I I ended up taking the mufflers back off so I could get my sockets and do it right. When I got the belt tension set, and started to tighten the cone nut to the proper torque, I kept having a problem with the cam (on the cone nut side) moving, and this would throw the whole adjustment off and I’d have to do it all over again. It kept happening, I couldn’t torque down the cone nut without the cam moving no matter what I did. The manual says to torque the cone nut to 22 foot lbs, adjust your belt tension (with the weld nut on the other side)and then torque to 95-105 lbs. I finally had to clamp a pair of vice grips right below the cam to keep it from moving. I was then able to torque the nut down but it was pretty frustrating, I was wondering if anyone had run into this issue and what you might do differently? BTW, I ended up with 1/2 inch of deflection...

I also wanted to check my alignment after reading gearheads comments, so I used a length of weed eater string to measure from the axle nut to the swingarm pivot, and came up with 18-3/8 inches on both sides. Although it might not be exact I do think it’s pretty close, I took several measurements ...
sorry for the length of this response, just a lot of info I wanted to include.




Don’t waste your money


Vice grips to keep the cam from moving

 

Yea you know I was having that issue as well this weekend. I have a giant 36mm socket & a dinky 36mm spanner from my Suzuki kit. Had to remove the slip ons & then I was holding the left side with the spanner with all my might (the handle is all of 3" maybe) while my son was cranking on the right side with the big socket. They were moving around on us as well. Finally got both side cam marks realigned. I just drew straight lines with a sharpie on each cam before removing the rear wheel. Took her for a test ride & seems ok. Yes probably 3/8-1/2" belt deflection. I don't remember it being as difficult the last tire change.