I was first gonna say I'm not crazy, but...

I look down at my 900's front end and I see my Axel is traveling to the right like it's threading itself out of the holders. On the left side it's 1/2 inch in on the axel end nut. Now I'm sitting here pondering what I'm looking at. Anybody ever had this or got any guesses what is up? Put new bearings in about 2 years ago and not that many miles on her. I can't seem to get my mind around what could possibly be doing it. Most likely something simple but I'm scratching head. Not cooties either!:whistle:

No need to say you're crazy, Gris, plenty of us 'll say it for ya... :whistle:

Well, there's really only one thing that'll do it - check how much scortch is on the axle clamp bolts. Likely as not there's a differing figure for the clamps on each side, and a little wiggle action on the axle could be being applied by torque from the brake...

I had exactly the same problem after reassembling my bike from winter maintenance. I had put the front wheel together *slightly* wrong, and it was unthreading the axle to the right.

I *thought* my speedo drive was binding up, but in reality I had put the piece *behind* the speedo drive on wrong. In reality it was that the two tabs of my "Speedometer Gear Drive" (this is the thing that has the two "teeth" that turn the drive) were not seated in the grooves of the "Front Hub" before I but on the disc and the rest. It must have slightly turned while loose fitting everything before tightening it down.

This little tiny distance difference caused something to bind together and slowly turn the axle over a period of days. I put a chalk mark on the axle and axle nut to be sure, and yep -- it was turning about 1/4" each day...

Anyway, a quick dis/reassembly was all it took to fix the problem. It was a real head-scratcher, though!

I don't know if this helps you, but at least I finally got to tell my weird story!

By the way, Here's a link to the original posts of mine when I had this problem for reference...

Maybe you have the wheel on backwards

Post edited by: Krammit2, at: 2006/06/20 08:00

Cool! When it gets a little cooler i'll check it out. Thanks! Biquetoast was your speedometer working OK when this was happening?

Hmmmm, interesting stuff. My parts bike also has the front axle out of whack. I wasn't overly surprised though, as I take this thing apart I become more keenly aware of following F.S.M. procedures. If a fly farted on the handle of my ratchet wrench, it could have broken the torque on the oil pan bolts, they were so loose. But at the same time I had to use a chisel to move the oil filter drain bolt and I had to pull out, with channel locks, while turning the oil drain bolt for it to catch, as it just spun round and round. Of course it ate all the threads on its egress. It was either no torque or gorilla tightening, I'm glad that I use my torque wrenches. I've overlooked a few things that could fall into the axle shifting category before, but these guys that figure that very tight is good and steroid tight is better, are ruining my parts supply!

ambergrismooon wrote:

Cool! When it gets a little cooler i'll check it out. Thanks! Biquetoast was your speedometer working OK when this was happening?

Yep, the speedo was actually fine. I'd take the wheel apart, no binding. Bolt it back up and tighten, and erratic binding.

I'd think the bearings were going, but then take the wheel off, and they're fine. It was weird.

The only thing I had to go on was that the speedo seemed to be getting pinched.

In hindsight, I think it was, but the cause was the spacing problem behind the disc, not the speedo drive itself....