Alignment Problem?

I bought my 97 several months ago and have put about 2000 miles on it so far and it has 34000 total. I've noticed the front tire is wearing considerably faster on the left side. Also when going through a left hander the bike seems to take more effort to get over hold a line. At first I thought it was just me who had the problem with left turns but now with the tire wear issue I'm not that sure and wonder if I have some kind of alignment problem. The rear tire is wearing evenly by the way. Anybody have any thoughts?

 

I am no expert, but I believe this is a fairly common problem, based on what I have read here and some other sites.

Most of our roadways are pitched slightly to the right to allow water drainage. This means that if riding in a straight line, the left side of your tires are actually making greater contact with the road than the right, causing the left side to wear faster.

I'm not sure how true this is, but in theory it makes sense.

 

Interesting...my first question would be does it steer to one side?

Anyway with that said I'll base the following that it does.

Poor handling may be caused by one of the following:
1) Bent axle;
2) Bent frame;
3) Worn or damaged front wheel bearings;
4) Damaged steering head bearings;
5) Uneven front fork adjustment; or
6) Incorrectly installed wheels.

I would recommend starting with point 5. Adjustment needs to match exactly.

Hope this helps, cheers.

 

^^^Agreed^^^

I'd get the front end up off the ground (center stand + block under the front of the engine) and do the following....

See if the front wheel has any play in it around the axle. Indicates bad bearings.
Look for odd pad wear or heat signature on the rotor indicating more than a tire wear issue.
Look if the forks appear slightly twisted in the tripples, or bent. Crash damage.
Push/pull the tire and feel for play around the steering head. Sterring head bearings okay?
Run a string just touching two points on one side of the rear tire, to the front of the bike and see if you can get two points to similarly line up on the front keeping the sting straight. Allignment or frame/fork/tripple/etc damage.
Loosen the pinch bilts and axle nut and pull the axle. See if it binds badly and/or is bent.
See if there is any damage to your wheel spacers when you pull the axle.
Once wheel is off have a good look at the bearings and see if you can wiggle the races and if the seals ar in place.
Both forks adjusted the same?
Both forks same length and equally mounted in the tripples?

I'm curious what you find.
Good luck!

 

Wow, thanks guys. That's a lot of great info. It will take me a few days to check all that stuff out. I'll let you know what I find.

 

Fork adjustment

I found that the left fork was a full 1.5 turns softer. Is that enough to cause a wear issue? The bike doesn't wobble at any speed and the forks are straight and no problems with the brakes (pads and rotors are new). The bike tracks straight. I had it up to 125 over the weekend and didn't notice anything. Everything up from seems tight.

 

LOL could be all your turns going and coming are lefts. As far as suspension goes,, Nope won't make a difference. You can do the chalk line thing. but I doubt it's off, won't hurt to check. Put your bike on it's center stand then if you have a 8' straight edge it would work, string works too, you'll just need more hands and eyes. Thing here is to put the straight edge so it just touches the out side of the rear tire on both the leading and rear edge of the tire, this will give you a line forward to be able to check how the front lines up. being your front tire is narrow than the rear, you will see once you line up the front just whats what Hope that makes sense. I suppose in a worse case situation your rear axle could be skewed a bit giving you an off angle where you put in a little counter steer but man, I'd like to believe you'd notice that.

 

We had a few theories on this very topic some years back. If you ride on the street and you stay on your side of the road, then your left turns will almost always be of a larger radius than right turns. This is especially true if you ride the same twisty roads to work and back every day. Also, you usually have a better line of sight on a larger radius turn so you'd be on the gas harder and sooner. Of course this theory doesn't apply at the track. Your rear tire will wear more from accel and decel than cornering thus "squaring off" in the center. It will wear on the sides, but it doesn't take the same abuse cornering as the front.

 

1 and half turns is alot. I believe this would account for fighting with the bike in turns as your first quote stated. I beg to differ with the opinion that this would make no difference, just from a safety point of view it would make a big difference.

And just from experience, when I picked my bike up these adjustments were out and I seemed to fight with the bike all the way home. When I finally correctly adjusted the bike felt like a whole new bike, lighter and quicker in the corners.

Whether this would make a difference to the tyre wear, only time will tell.

Cheers

 

I've replaced literally thousands of motorcycle tires in my life. Seldom do I see the old ones wore out symetrically in any way...across the width or radially. I don't usually attribute this to any problem with the bike itself. NEVER a bad a idea to give your front end a close examination though.

 

In addition to the forks being set different I ran the alignment string test and as best I can tell the front tire is 3/8'' off to the left in relationship to the rear. Good, bad, don't worry?