Wheel alignment: Late singles and early twins

[vargas1]

A question on wheel alignment for those who have original, unmolested machines, either late model single Desmos with 35 mm Ceriani forks and a single 4 bolt Brembo disc and caliper, and maybe 750 twins with the same parts.

With the standard spacers, the wheel does not seem to be centred in the forks. It could be that in order to get the disc centred in the Brembo caliper, the factory may have had had to shift the wheel over to one side of the centre line.

Could someone out there make some measurements, please? If you have the disc centred in the caliper, and if the mudguard (fender) is fitted, measurement could be taken from the inside machined surface of the bottom of the fork leg to the hub, parallel with the wheel spindle. On mine, the measurement on the non-disc side is about 1 mm greater than on the disc side.

I find it a bit strange that the wheel would not have beeen centred in the fork as it left the factory, but maybe I'm wrong. If that is the case, then the rear wheel would also have to be shifted over by a similar amount.

[Jon Pegler]

Do you have the speedo drive spacer in place? If it is missing, the spindle may pull the fork legs too close together causing the wheel to be about 1mm out of line.
The caliper may also need moving out from the fork leg to centralise it with the disc. Ducati (& Brembo) used to supply shims for this. Thin washers would also do the job. If the wheel is centralised but the disc is not central to the caliper, this may be all you need to do.

Jon

[vargas1]

Hi Jon, thanks for the reply. Yes, the speedo drive spacer is fitted and I was very careful not to squeeze the fork legs. I found that the caliper would need moving outwards - not inwards – to centralise the wheel in the fork. That is, 1 mm would need to be shaved off the caliper mounts. However, I am not going to do this!

Since I posted this query, I checked the alignment with the rear wheel, and with the disc centralised in the caliper, both wheels are pretty well in line. This is, I think, the most important issue at the end of the day.

Sorry for the late reply. I am used to being in fora where you get an email when a post is added to a thread.

Dave

[BevHevSteve]

click the button at the bottom of the page when you post that says NOTIFY ME WHEN SOMEONE REPLIES TO THIS POST and you will get an email.

[vargas1]

Thanks, Steve!