I removed the front wheel to get the ugly rubber bumper off my 99 EGC yesterday, took the bike out today and there was a nasty grinding sound. Got back home and started to pull stuff off and it was pretty obvious that the right side pad retainer was grinding against the brake disk pretty bad.

Fooled around a bit trying to see if I installed it wrong and from the looks of the service manual I put everything back in correctly, but the pad retainer was still contacting the rotor. I took the wheel off, and reinstalled it a few times trying to see if I possibly had it aligned wrong somehow, and as far as I can tell everything is the way it came off the bike originally, but the retainer is still contacting the rotor.

Finally I get it on where the wheel will spin freely, and only the pads contact the rotor, however the pad retainer is very close to the rotor (closer than on the left side, and there is a small gap between the wheel spacer and the fork. The left side caliper is installed pretty much the same and I am not having any issues with it, and there is a ton more room between the pad retainer and the rotor. If I

Any clue what I did wrong? Possibly a spacer installed backwards?

See the picture for a photo explanation

 

Wheel on backwards? Are both spacers the same size? The axle clamp is loose when you tightened the front wheel right? Loose, not sloppy.

 

There is a procedure in the service manual on how to align the front wheel using a drill bit.

This is from the 2006 Service Manual, not sure what year bike you have, and I'm not sure if all years are the same. Hope this helps.

 

If I'm looking at it right it's not enough space there. Pull it and check the spacers for difference in thickness. Also depending on the age it's possible somebody spread the forks a little while tightening the clamp to center the caliper before (steelerdude's post explains that)
The bad news is you may have warped the rotor.

 

I thought about the wheel being on backwards, but the markings on the tire say it should rotate correctly the way it is currently installed, unless the previous owner had the tire installed wrong (a possibility).

There is only 1 spacer, the other side is a mechanically driven speedometer. I tried to install the front wheel with the axle clamp finger tight and torqued down, neither way made the wheel align correctly in the fork.


Will try with the drill bit


Yeh, like I said earlier, only one spacer, the other side is the speedo drive cable. Luckily the rotor isnt warped, It spins freely and maintains a constant contact with the pads, and at no time did the rotor make the bike shutter

 

Dodged a bullet then, something to be said for the slightly older bikes. These new rotors might as well be tin foil.

 

If that is too much space at the axle, I'd think the disk would be contacting on the other (inboard) side. Usually if you get a spacer in the wrong order, it's pretty obvious something is wrong before you ride it. If all else fails, you might want to pull the wheel again and carefully check everything putting it back on - and spin it while it's in the air to see that there's no interference. You could also see if putting a spacer on in the opposite direction made a difference, but I don't recall any that would have made a difference. Did you have the pads off? Might make a difference if you got them reversed going back on, they don't necessarily wear evenly.

 

I've been wrenching on japanese bikes for well over a decade and in the three weeks I've owned this bike, this HD stuff is a big question mark for me. I still have a tach that jumps all over the place. I thought I had that fixed last week with dielectric grease, but it started up again today and threw an engine diagnostic code again.


Anyway, fixed it/figured it out. Thanks to steelerdude. The 7/16 drill bit work perfectly and gave me the correct placement of the front axle (7/16 drill bit just got added to my tool kit).Once I got the axle set correctly I realized that the axle where it sits in the fork clamp has a slightly larger diameter than the rest of the axle. The spacer as shown in the picture above is tight against the lip. The problem that caused the pad retainer to contact the rotor was that the axle was not placed correctly, moving the whole wheel to the right side of the bike causing the retainer to contact the rotor. Once the axle was in correctly, the wheel sat in its correct place and the retainer no longer touches.

Thanks for the quick responses.