Fork alignment proceedure

[Far Canal]

When re-installing my front wheel on XS special, once the axle bolt is tightened I have to kinda force the right hand slider outwards a few millimeters to align it centrally over the brake rotor. Have been wondering if perhaps the fork tubes are not properly aligned in the 2 tripple clamps?. Anyone know the best way to make sure everything is in alignment. For the record my bike did not have any bolts in the top tripple clamp when I got it.
So do you loosen top and bottom tripple clamps as well as axle bolt and pinch bolt and then bounce front end slightly on centerstand before re-tightening? And is there a correct sequence to tightening up the various bolts?.

[Eveready1100]

I have to kinda force the right hand slider outwards a few millimeters to align it centrally over the brake rotor.

Brad, that's generally been accepted as normal practice for refitting the wheel properly, though it does defy the basic theories of fork stiction by adding increased side load to the internal sliding surfaces.

To make absolutely sure nothing else in the front end is bent or twisted, the easiest check for the fork legs is to jack the front of the bike slightly off the ground, undo the bolts in the upper and lower triple clamps (check one side at a time) and grab the fork tube and twist it around inside the clamp to see if it it binds in any position. If they turn smoothly, the fork legs will generally be ok.
If a tight spot is felt, best to remove the front wheel, put the bare axle back in and do up the axle nut a bit, put the clamp and nuts loosely on the other side and rotate the fork leg again, watching for any fore and aft movement of the axle in the clamp. A bent fork leg will show up very clearly with this method.

To check to see if the triple clamps are bent (after checking the fork legs), grab a sheet of glass ( a plain louvre will do perfectly) and lay it across the fork tubes above the sliders. If there's no wobble when you try to rock the sheet form one corner to the other, the clamps will be fine.

[DGXSER]

It is part of the procedure in the manual for installing the front wheel that you tighten the axle nut, then adjust the right side fork tube to center the rotor in the slot, then tighten the pinch bolt holding it centered.

As for aligning the front end. jack the front end off the ground. I typically loosen all but the top tree clamp bolts. This includes the fender bolts, the axle nut, the pinch bolt, and the lower tree bolts. Now hold the bars so the top tree is aligned with the frame of the bike at a 90 deg angle. Look at the front wheel it should align with the frame of the bike. If it does not, I use my knees to adjust it so it does. Now start from the top down tightening bolts.

IF you want to check for bent fork tubes, take a 12" X 12" piece of glass or steel and lay it across the tubes. it should sit flat against both.

[James England]

Yes, definitely tighten the spindle nut first. You don't want to tighten the clamp on the right first or, when you tighten the spindle nut, it pulls the right side slider over to the left (viewed as if sitting on the bike). Same goes for the swinging arm. So, spindle nut first, then align the clamp side and tighten the clamp. The sliders actually rotate on the fork stanchions (eg when the wheel isn't in), so the main thing is to get the two stanchions tightened evenly in the yokes..in terms of where the tops of the stanchions are in relation to the top yoke...they need to be exactly level. I generally tighten each side a little bit each time, gradually increasing the torque on each of the yoke nuts, starting with the bottom ones. Things get a little more complicated if you have a fork brace....it stops the sliders rotating, so I get everything done first and then add the fork brace last, tightening each side evenly. I refitted my XJR brace recently and got it wrongly aligned..it made the front end extremely stiff!

The XS1100 stanchions are weedily small diameter for such a big bike..like they all were in the 70's and 80's (have a look at a CBX1000 stanchions and swinging arm!) but it would take an impact actually to bend one. You can see the stanchions flex as the bike moves..not advisable to get too interested when on the move though!

[crazy steve]

Here's a previous thread on the subject...... http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread...fork+alignment

The factory XS manuals aren't a good guide for anything more than torque values. The XJ manual has a better procedure (similar to the link in the above thread) but still omits some detail if you're really trying to get it right. The major flaw in the Special forks is the brake design that does require you to pull one tube out of alignment in order to line up the rotor/caliper, but there's no help for it.

The procedure is roughly the same for the standards, but you do have the non-factory option of shimming the caliper brackets rather than pulling a fork tube over.