Another rear wheel spacer issue (maybe)

BillB · Jan 7, 2014

Doing the rear tire on the bike last night and found somethng that made me scratch my head. Had the bike up on the table lift and started backing the axle nut off and it just felt funny the way the nut was backing off. Then I noticed that there was a gap starting to appear between the inside of the swingarm and the spacer. Kinda like the spacer was too short and swingarm had been pulled in under tension to meet the spacer. With the nut backed off untill it just broke free there is about .060 gap between the spacer and the swingarm.

Is that normal on our bikes or do I have a problem to deal with? That seems to me like a bloody long way to be pulling the swingarm to get torque to me.

Oh yeah, this is the first new tire that has been put on it so it was built with that spacer.

STRIPES · Jan 7, 2014

Sounds like yall needed to trade spacers!

albertaduke · Jan 7, 2014

was your gap in inches or centimeters? you seem to have the opposite problem from me regardless of measurement units seems too much gap..is it on the same side as your rear brake mount? maybe you have a spacer too short for the model?my spacer was 2.948 mm and I had only 250mm between spacer and swingarm the brake mount measure about 290.. wide at the space so I cannot shoehorn it in for those who tried to help me I went back to triumph and they claim that the spacer I received is the right one so I am taking the bike in and let them figure out the situation.

you may have to check and order a longer spacer what is going on with these anyway.

BillB · Jan 7, 2014

albertaduke said:
was your gap in inches or centimeters? you seem to have the opposite problem from me regardless of measurement units seems too much gap..is it on the same side as your rear brake mount? maybe you have a spacer too short for the model?my spacer was 2.948 mm and I had only 250mm between spacer and swingarm the brake mount measure about 290.. wide at the space so I cannot shoehorn it in for those who tried to help me I went back to triumph and they claim that the spacer I received is the right one so I am taking the bike in and let them figure out the situation.

you may have to check and order a longer spacer what is going on with these anyway.

That measurement is in inches and it is only a rough measurement with a feeler gauge. It was late and I was trying to get the rim and new tire into the car so I could take it into work and throw it on the tire machine and get the new tire mounted today before we opened.

I am going to get the assembly put back together tonight and get some hard measurements about the gap and spacer length, and decide what to do from there. I will pull up the conversion calculator and get it into mm so we aren't comparing apples to peas and go on from there.

When you pulled the rim with the original spacer installed, was it a pretty tight fit after backing off the nut and before removing anything else? Mine you could slide the rim side to side enough that it would make noise when it hit either side.

My gut feeling is that you should not have to bend the swingarm in that far to make torque. Unless somebody tells me different I am going to turn a washer down on the lathe and put it on the surface grinder and thin it out to get .003" to .006" tolerance and reassemble. After I figure out what I am dealing with I will work on the place that I bought it from and get them to give me the correct spacer if the one I have is wrong.

BillB · Jan 7, 2014

STRIPES said:
Sounds like yall needed to trade spacers!

Yeah, I had thought about that. I just don't know exactly what I am up against as this is my first Rocket and I have only had it for four months. It is a totally different rig than I have ever wrenched on before so I just wanted to get the input from folks that know a lot more about them than I do yet.

ruzzle · Jan 7, 2014

Muckin' around with things like this makes me very nervous......

BillB · Jan 7, 2014

ruzzle said:
Muckin' around with things like this makes me very nervous......

Don't make me nervous at all mate. I have spent years and years up to my armpits in machines far more complicated than the Rocket is. There is no reason that I know of that there be that much of a tolerance between a torqued assembly like the rear end of the Rocket. If anyone can tell me that is normal, I will defer to them having more knowledge of the beast than I do.

albertaduke · Jan 7, 2014

BillB said:
That measurement is in inches and it is only a rough measurement with a feeler gauge. It was late and I was trying to get the rim and new tire into the car so I could take it into work and throw it on the tire machine and get the new tire mounted today before we opened.

I am going to get the assembly put back together tonight and get some hard measurements about the gap and spacer length, and decide what to do from there. I will pull up the conversion calculator and get it into mm so we aren't comparing apples to peas and go on from there.

When you pulled the rim with the original spacer installed, was it a pretty tight fit after backing off the nut and before removing anything else? Mine you could slide the rim side to side enough that it would make noise when it hit either side.

My gut feeling is that you should not have to bend the swingarm in that far to make torque. Unless somebody tells me different I am going to turn a washer down on the lathe and put it on the surface grinder and thin it out to get .003" to .006" tolerance and reassemble. After I figure out what I am dealing with I will work on the place that I bought it from and get them to give me the correct spacer if the one I have is wrong.

I clearly remember the rim did NOT have any play when i pulled it off (we are talking 2006 standard here ..) the brake mount just slid off with a push but no play between the spacer and the inner face of the swingarm i wish the original spacer was still available unfortunately we will never know as it was taped to the wheel and got lost during the tire change

Gothlander · Jan 8, 2014

Just something to consider, is the diff it's self adjustable on the swing-arm?

BillB · Jan 8, 2014

Gothlander said:
Just something to consider, is the diff it's self adjustable on the swing-arm?

I hadn't even thought about that, I would think not due to driveshaft alignment issues though. I am expecting the service manual that I ordered to show up any day now which should help clear things up.

Another rear wheel spacer issue (maybe)

BillB

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albertaduke

former airline pilot without the big bucks

BillB

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Another rear wheel spacer issue (maybe)

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former airline pilot without the big bucks

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former airline pilot without the big bucks

321 GONE

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