Rear Wheel Rubbing

[Dennyz]

A bent swing arm can also cause the tire to rub. I have first hand experience with the rear tire rubbing after my swing arm bending incident. However, I would expect a bent swing arm to cause the tire to rub consistently. Mine did.

[XSPastor]

Agreed - a bent swing arm would also cause a rub. Whadaya say, Johhnupstairs? Ever taken an impact from the rear or the side of the rear? I have seen swingarms on ebay for very reasonable prices. Does anyone know how to measure a swingarm to determine if it has been tweaked?

[Jonnyupstairs]

First off i'd like to thank everyone for helping me try to figure out this issue. Really awesome community here.

I did some more inspecting and from my untrained eye it doesn't look like the swing arm is bent, nor does it look like the rim is bent.

For the length i have owned the bike it has never had a rear impact, or any impact at all.

I did measure out the rear tire from sidewall to sidewall all the way around and i got a measurement of 143mm.

[trbig]

Measuring around the tire from sidewall, across tread, to other sidewall won't tell much. What really needs measuring is just the actual width of the tire sidewall to sidewall, but I'm not sure how you'd do that.

As stated before though... with no other changes made, the Maxxis tire rubbed on the other members bike when tires of the same stamped size, (but different brands) before and after the Maxxis wouldn't.


Tod

[cruiser]

For what it's worth.
I have Maxxis Classics on my XJ with 12,000 miles on but soon to be replaced with Elite IIIs. I always knew my clearance was thin but feeler gauge measurment tonight shows .26 in. at that narrow rib on the sidewall. That looks to be where yours is rubbing and it's the wide point of the tire. Not much clearance but mine has never rubbed.
Hopefully Elite IIIs will have a bit more clearance on mine.

[XSPastor]

Measuring around the tire from sidewall, across tread, to other sidewall won't tell much. What really needs measuring is just the actual width of the tire sidewall to sidewall, but I'm not sure how you'd do that.

You'd need a large O.D. caliper. You also might be able to use a couple of t-squares. If you slide them together keeping them square on either side of the tire, you should get a pretty accurate measurement.

[jjwaller]

Something else to possibly consider,
Maxxis is a brand of Cheng Shin.
Not particularly known for high quality control. Very possible the tire is molded out of round, or with bulges here and there. I know others have had good luck with chinese tires, but I'll stick to the major brands.

[Do Lee]

Going by the Maxxis.com writeup of the Maxxis Classic 130x90/16 tires, the tire width says to be 5.30", the Dunlop Elite 2 is 5.20" & Dunlop Elite 3 is 5.15". So this Maxxis Classic tire is larger than the Dunlops 130's.
I run 140's Dunlops MU90s and both the Elite 2 & 3's are 5.57" and I had installed a washer actually another axel washer inside my pumpkin to shift the tire over to keep it off the swing arm. On my previous Elite 2 I had noticed that when the tire was worn down (close to replacing) the tire flatten out some and rubbed on the swing arm.
So the Maxxis Classic 130x90/16 tire is wider so your space between the swing arm will be less than 1/4".
With my washer shim on my Elite 2, I now have about 3/32's clearance with a little over 17,000 miles on it, and started out with 5/32's clearance new. Hope to get a few more thousand miles on these tires, so in a few months I'll be trying the Elite 3's.
I average between 160 to 200 miles a week riding to and from work.