rear alignment

[bobbomo]

Long story short, I found my bike knocked over and the drive-shaft is rubbing slightly on the rear wheel side wall. From what I can tell, there is no adjustment on the alignment so I am afraid either the frame or the rim is bent.

I finally got around to ordering the repair manual and am anxious to get it before taking the back wheel off (not too familiar with how the driveshaft disconnects).

Has anyone ever heard of a similar issue?

[DiverRay]

Rob;
You may have a bent swing-arm. One thing you can do is loosen the pinch bolt on the rear axle. If there is any force on the swing arm, this should allow it to relax. You would then tighten the bolt again, and see if the tire is still hitting the swing arm. It is on the right side, on the swing arm. This is the last bolt tightened, and the first loosened when changing a rear tire. My daily ride had VERY poor handling, and I found it was because the PO had tightened the pinch bolt and THEN tightened the axle nut. That put a "tourque" on the swing arm, and made the bike feel as if it was connected to the ground with rubber bands!
Ray

[pggg]

Bob, about the only thing that could bend a Yamaha XS1100 would be a collision with either a bulldozer or fully laden locomotive. Even then the train or bully would most likely come off second best. Trouble is, if the pinion gears have been misaligned, the whole shaft/bevel/pinion system is liable to chew itself to peices before long.

[John]

Patrick. I have learned first hand that a 35 mph collision with the side of a Chevy pick up will bend an XS11, and will break the rider. It bent the truck too, though.

[pggg]

Put it this way, if John was on a plastic fantastic the bike would most likely be history for good. Here's 2 pics of a VERY VERY VERY HEAVY bike crash. The bike hit a tree at 280kph. Gotta warn ya - it's extreme.

http://homepages.inspire.net.nz/~patrick/death1.jpg

http://homepages.inspire.net.nz/~patrick/death.jpg

[John]

Man, that second pic was downright SCARY! I have no idea the age of the rider, but if he was young, then that just re-affirms my belief that these repli- racers do not belong on the street, or in the hands of a kid. If he was older, then he should have known better.

[skids]

Now why did I have to look at that??? I am definately not going to put that on any bike calendars! Lets keep in mind that "dead" is "dead" and whether you do it at 165mph or at 25mph, you get planted either way. Sheesh...lets be careful out there.

Originally posted by pggg
Put it this way, if John was on a plastic fantastic the bike would most likely be history for good. Here's 2 pics of a VERY VERY VERY HEAVY bike crash. The bike hit a tree at 280kph. Gotta warn ya - it's extreme.

[Pat Kelly]

These photos were also on the Plus 2 site.
There was a few replies about it.
I personally think it's fake. If the rider was torn-up that bad then their parts would be scattered all over, not grouped nicely. Accident investigators would photograph the parts where they layed then bag them, not move them into an arrangement. Also, notice one boot and one tennis shoe? The photos were supposedly from New Zealand. The other photos with this showed an MPH sign on the right side of the road, not KPH on the left.
Still gruesome and makes you think

[Geezer]

Re: rear alignment

This is one of those no big deal issues. When under way, centrifical force narrows the tire. It only rubs at a walking pace or slower. The rear tire on every shafty I've had rubbed a little.

Geezer

Originally posted by bobbomo
Long story short, I found my bike knocked over and the drive-shaft is rubbing slightly on the rear wheel side wall. From what I can tell, there is no adjustment on the alignment so I am afraid either the frame or the rim is bent.

I finally got around to ordering the repair manual and am anxious to get it before taking the back wheel off (not too familiar with how the driveshaft disconnects).

Has anyone ever heard of a similar issue?

[xs650mike]

Originally posted by DiverRay
Rob;
You may have a bent swing-arm. One thing you can do is loosen the pinch bolt on the rear axle. If there is any force on the swing arm, this should allow it to relax. You would then tighten the bolt again, and see if the tire is still hitting the swing arm. It is on the right side, on the swing arm. This is the last bolt tightened, and the first loosened when changing a rear tire. My daily ride had VERY poor handling, and I found it was because the PO had tightened the pinch bolt and THEN tightened the axle nut. That put a "tourque" on the swing arm, and made the bike feel as if it was connected to the ground with rubber bands!
Ray

I'm with Ray on this one, at least it's worth a try. I hit a deer on my 400 and the front forks were severely tweaked. Loosened pinch bolts, sat on the bike, squeezed the brake lever and bounced the forks a couple of times...voici et voila, all straight! Tightened everything back up...'s been fine since.

[BLUEJEEPLAB]

Whoa, that's some picture (no 2). But I have to agree with Pat that the picture is staged, gruesome, but staged. 270 KPH impacts do spread things a long way. I was a Firefighter in a previous life and you find parts a long way from the point of impact. Besides, the damage to the helmet doesn't seem congruent with the damage to the head. Fake or not, it's one to make you think.

[pggg]

I'm not too sure that it was staged. I'm picking they gathered up all the peices and heaped them in one spot before taking away. Anyway, I'm deleting those pics, they're too gruesome to keep!

[xs650mike]

The helmet's in too good a condition for that to be real so once again pggg and I disagree on something. Bike looks real though. I saw a Goldwing that some drunk rode into a tree at 75 mph and it was rolled into a ball will plastic shards scattered far and wide. The corpse had already been removed. The tree survived but there was a big scar on it that took years to heal, a good reminder to slow for the curve!

[pggg]

Mikey, maybe the helmet and sneakers are from the still breathing pillion who was choppered to hospital? You and me would agree that everything's a guess unless all facts are known. It wasn't in NZ though - the road and vegetation are from somewhere else. I doubt it's fake - it'd be one mighty sick individual to stuff a mangled corpse into a set of bike leathers no?

[xs650mike]

Maybe so, pggg, maybe so. But...it'd also take a pretty sick individual to pile all the scattered body parts in a heap and take a picture of that. The rider photo still looks staged and the body is most likely not real, I once dropped a helmet in my garage and it was damaged more than the one in the picture. The bike photo's real though. Judging from the look of the wrecked bike I doubt that rider or hypothetical passenger would have survived. Of course I'm going from memory now, that link doesn't work anymore so I can't go back and study the pics. But you may be right, could be, could be.

Be careful out there on your chain drive rocket!