Hi all! So my bike had been in for tyres, fork seals, service and mot as the garage I'd purchased it from wanted to do all this after as part of the deal for buying it from them. So got the bike back and it didn't ride great! I notice the left clip on was further forward than the right and the front wheel didn't sit straight! So took it back today as they said they can sort it! I also noticed the back wheel wasn't aligned perfectly to the marks on the adjuster! So my question is this... Is it possible when they removed the forks and reinstalled them can it all be bolted up wrong, and would the rear wheel have an effect it? I looked closely at the bike and can't see any frame damage etc! All input greatly received Thanks
It is very easy to reinstall the forks and fit both wheels all to cock, just poor or lazy workmanship. Take your bike somewhere else. Andy
Guess it's possible they didn't line the axle up properly and tightened the pinch bolts so was a bit out. All they will do (guessing) is undo the bolts, bounce up and down then tighten
There is a procedure for correctly centering the front wheel before the final tightening of a front axle's pinch bolts. The rear wheel should, ideally, be aligned with a quality laser and not those marks on the side of a swing arm.
It's as I described above. Fit wheel Tighten spindle Bounce front up and down Tighten pinch bolts Some nip up the axle after that, some do it before
There's a few ways to do it. As above is the most common, but try to do it without the brakes held firmly or at all (sit on the bike whilst bouncing) haha behave Others include pieces of wood and measure the gap side to side, preferably a laser..
Why I like to do my own spanner work. I may not be a pro but I'll take my time, not rush, and triple check.
Below is what I advised on a different thread, it seems it worked. It might worth to slightly undue the bolts at upper fork clamp, axle, pinch bolts, caliper bolts push down 2-3 times on the front, then pull in the front brake lever(can use a cable tie) and then re tighten all bolts as per manual or as @bradders wrote above. Leave the bolts tight at the lower clamp! Do not forget to tighten the caliper bolts. Above should realign the forks and also center the calipers on the rotors. I had front brakes dragging, after swaping calipers to Brembo HPK, above steps sorted out.
It's in the workshop manual which if you don't have you shouldn't be putting tools near your bike. It's so easy to find out that honestly it worries me a bit that you'd ask without trying to find out easily first? Just saying as bikes are f*ckin dangerous things if not screwed together properly, fact.
Dude I restore classic Ferrari's for a living, so nuts and bolts aren't the issue, I was asking peoples opinion if what I'd been told by the garage was plausible as somethings on a bike I won't attempt. I've taken it back to the garage for the reason that they can be dangerous if not correctly maintained. So whilst I understand what your saying I was asking if there was a link to the method for my own curiosity to what may or may not be done. May people have many different ways of fixing a problem, I was purely looking for the opinion of Ducati enthusiasts whom I'm sure know far more than a google search on bikes in general as different makers, different methods as with cars.
So a bloke that restores nice cars buys a bike and takes it in for some maniacal work at the garage's request, he notices the bike doesn't handle properly afterwards and then notices alignment mark issues with at least one of the wheels, he knows bikes are dangerous and wonders if he should take it back to the same shop and, possibly, tell the jokers how to do it.
If the forks have been removed, there is every chance that incorrect refitting has caused wheel misalignment. If this is the case, the forks themselves will be compromised slightly too as the two legs will be slightly out of parallel and they will tend to bind slightly. The techniques mentioned already should sort it out and that would be my first course of action. It may also be worth checking that both legs are set at equal heights in the yokes. If they are, the spindle should slide freely into and across both fork bottoms, with the wheel removed. Then I would realign the rear wheel to the front. The essential point about wheel alignment is that the front wheel is narrower than the rear and so, when checking with a straight edge, the gaps between it and the front tyre should be equal to half the difference in width between the front and rear tyres (and obviously should be the same at front and rear points on the front tyre). Personally, I always check this on both sides of the bike, not just one. Any straight edge can be used, but finding one can be harder than you might imagine. I use a length of sea fishing line stretched taught between two heavy items to create a straight edge. And the higher up the tyre you can position the straight edge, the more accurate the end result will be. I may have been imagining it but last year I misaligned my rear wheel by half a turn of one of the adjusters. I swear I could feel this on the road, in the form of a tendency to shimmy off white lines etc. I was surprised that such a small error could create a noticeable effect on the road .. but that was my experience. Lasers may be accurate in themselves but its all about how they are used. I find that a straight edge or string line gives equally accurate results. The chain alignment marks on the swingarm are ok as a guide but they are not necessarily accurate. If you have doubts about the quality of the work done you should perhaps query this with the garage before touching anything yourself. Though I can understand that if their work is suspect you might not want them working on the bike anymore anyway. To be honest, the above fork and wheel realignment process is probably well worth doing as a matter of course on any secondhand bike, as who knows what level of mechanical ability has been let loose on it in the past.
Honestly mate I'd get the bits off of them and either do the work yourself (download the manual or PM for a link) or take the bike somewhere else. TBH getting the handlebars aligned 'perfectly' is almost impossible without the proper gauge which almost nobody uses (because everyone thinks they know better) but the real kicker in your case is the front and rear wheel issues, the bike itself may well be fine but clearly the supplying dealer's mechanic (and whoever is responsible for checking the bike there) are not up to the job and I'd be wary of them putting it right - they are both such simple jobs for an experienced mechanic (or home mechanic) that to get those jobs wrong is rather telling.
This is from a 749R manual but it's the same procedure. The 'special tool' is used solely to ensure the hole in the front axle aligns with the fork leg (so that you can pass a slim flat-blade screwdriver up through the bottom of the fork leg and adjust the compression damping valve in the bottom of each fork):
