[enrico vespa]

Not a question in regards to alignment, I have that covered.

My situation. I'm putting on a 5.5 rim on my swingarm(stock rim is 4.5). Anyway, I wound up getting spacers to make the rim fit. I put in the bearings myself and the spacers as per instructions that came with the spacer kit.

Problem... the cush doesn't fit all the way into the side of the wheel. I even stood on the thing and applied greese to the rubber pieces inside so the cush could slide in. Still no luck.

I took it to a shop and the guy told me the spacer(custom) thats in the cush is too long so it won't let the cush settle in the wheel. I asked him if my bearings are all the way in, he said yes. I asked them to take them out and put them back in. He did and still the same problem.

I had the stock spacer that goes in the cush in my pocket and tried that instead of the custom one. The cush went right in.

Now th other night a friend came by and helped me installing my chain since he had a riveter tool. The rear wheel(95gsxr1100) was mounted(using the stock cush spacer). I tightened the axle bolts. The wheel seemed to fit well.

My Question------> How do I make sure that the rear wheel is at the center of the swingarm?

I don't want to ride a bike if the rear wheel is a lil to the left or right.

Thank you for taking the time in reading my post. Since I'm not a mechanic, I know alot of you are and hopefully someone will be able to help me.

 

[enrico vespa]

Some pics so you can see what I mean.

here are the pics of both spacers together,

the bearings in the wheel,

the inside of the cush

the positioning of the cush with the custom spacer and stock spacer in
the cush.
stock

custom

 

[Dudad]

my ninja cush sat like that all the time for some reason, never had any issues with it. Question though, instead of putting the spacer inside the cush drive why didnt you just space the sprocket outward or just use a wider spacer one the outside?

 

[enrico vespa]

there's already a spacer on the ouside before I mount the wheel between the cush and the swingarm. The guy I got the spacers from wants me to send him another pic from a different angle, we'll see what happens.

 

[Scrapyard]

Well, there's the eye ball it method. Get a really long piece of string. Long enough that it will cover the lenth of the bike more the twice. What you want to do is take the string and wrap it around the back wheel at it's furthest point. meaning the very back edge of the tire. put the string in the center of the wheel. now make the two ends even and stretch them to the front of the bike. Lay on the ground and with the 2 ends in your hands make the string tawt and touch the the string to the edge of the tire's sidewalls. You want the sting to be as straight as possible. You don't want it to bend around the tire just lightly touch it. Now, with the bike standing straight up and down line the up the string with the front tire and look down the string. if there's any more space down one side of the bike or the other you should be able to see it. One step further would be to have someone measure the distance from the string to a fixed point on the bike that you know is centered and do the math from there.

 

[Dudad]

What I meant was why not make the outside spacer larger instead of puttinga spacer inside the sprocket? If it was just to make the sprocket line up with the front one couldnt you just shim the rear sprocket instead? Meaning put a washer behind the sprocket then bolt it down

 

[enrico vespa]

The guy got back to me and I'm taking the wheel off tonight so I can get it rebalanced. I'll check out what he told me. Hopefully it'll work its way out. I'll try the strings. Then the washers.

The guy told me the cush is supposed to be out like that to line it up with the front sprocket.

I'll see this weekend what I'm gonna do. Thanks all for the suggestions.