hi, didnt see any other posts covering this,,I was going to check my belt tension on my 1200R and bought the gauge but noticed the 2004 factory manual says to check the belt with the bike on the side stand with no weight on the bike but the owners manual that came with the bike says to do it upright with a rider on the seat,,both call for 3/8" to 7/16" deflection. Any recommendations, I dont get the same results when doing it both ways,,thanks

My 04' 1200R has about 6200 miles on it. At around 2k miles, I had to replace the rear tire due to a nasty puncture. After that time, I've paid closer attention to the
tire condition as well as the drive belt. I had noticed that mine was tracking distinctly to the right side of the rear pulley. I mentioned it to the service dept. at the 5k mile checkup and they said it was normal. They commented that they'd seen them do that, only to track to the other side if the bike was rolled backwards.
Mine didn't. Yesterday, I convinced myself that something needed to
be done and have moved the rear axle enough that I've forgotten where I started. Arrgh!
I measured the distance from the center of the swingarm pivot to the center of the axle on each side. They are remarkably close. What bugs me is if I measure the length of each adjuster bolt protruding from the swingarm ends, they are very different. I also measured the distance from the flats of each end of the axle and nut to the
swingarm and got different readings once again. If I adjust until the belt tracks true, the axle is farther "off" still. Add in the potential for the brake rotor to drag because the wheel is out of alignment even though the belt is straight and I'm at wit's end.
I have the HD belt tension tool and have approximated my weight on
the bike with a tie-down hooked across the rear seat and too each side of the swingarm. I sat on the bike & adjusted the tie down until the bike doesn't move when I am off the bike prior to checking the tension. It's as good as it gets unless my girlfriend gains 40 pounds. LOL
Thoughts, anyone?

My 04' 1200R has about 6200 miles on it. At around 2k miles, I had to replace the rear tire due to a nasty puncture. After that time, I've paid closer attention to the
tire condition as well as the drive belt. I had noticed that mine was tracking distinctly to the right side of the rear pulley. I mentioned it to the service dept. at the 5k mile checkup and they said it was normal. They commented that they'd seen them do that, only to track to the other side if the bike was rolled backwards.


In my previous Suzuki Marauder there were some lines emgraved in the axel register.
They were wrong!
With the same number of lines left and right the wheel was completely out of alignment.
If in the factory they do a wrong printing of the lines you'll never be right.
So I don't trust anymore in this registers and try to use different ways depending on the bike.
On my Kawasaki ZRX1200 there's the eccentric, it's more easy and fine.
I saw a nice billet aluminium swingharm for Sportsters with the eccentric regulation, but I don't know if it's for '04-'05 models also. It's a JMC and their website is http://www.swingarm.com

Someone posted some great info on how to use a laser to set it perfectly. Don't know where tho!

Okay, Will. You have your homework assignment! :D

Kim

I've had 3 belt driven HD's and a belt driven Buell and on all of them the belt tracked to the outside edge of the rear pulley from when the bike was new with the factory setting and every time I adjusted the belt as per factory spec.
The belts on my mates 3 HD's all displayed the same thing.
I assume from this that it is very common.

The rear axle MUST be parrallel to the swingarm pivot (which is parrallel to the drive pulley shaft)
The only true way to check this is to measure the distance from the centre of the swingarm pivot to the centre of the rear axle and make sure it is the same each side. :)

Okay, Will. You have your homework assignment! :D
Kim
I did a search with no luck Maybe it's in the old forum archives?