Just a quick question about if anyone has or known anybody that has slightly bent their rear fender struts to one side to prevent rear tyre rubbing on fender? I have a 2012 Wide glide which I have just put on new rims with a 200 rear tyre. All is good but have this offset tyre/fender thing going on which I've been told is a common thing. When ridding two up with the wife and gear the rear tyre just kisses the strut backing plate on the inside of the fender. It just kisses it and only at the back of the fender because the gap between the fender and tyre is tappered from good clearance at the front to very close at the back on one side. Can not see any marks on tyre at all! I only found out this was happing because I put some masking tape on the inside of the left hand side of the fender because it looked close. The tape was still there and not damaged after ride but there was a few black rub marks down the back part of the fender. So could you or would you slightly over flex the struts 5mm to 7mm to one side or would you not worry about it beening such a slight rubbing? Also you can not feel any rubbing when riding.

Hi,

The frame will determine the clearance there, what brand tyre you have? As some tyres Arent true measurements and you may shave a few mm with tyre selection

For instance the stock dunlop gt502 is a true 180/60-17, the pirelli night dragon is 180/60-17 but when fitted is only 170mm wide

Thanks
Robots

Mine was out quite a bit so machined new spacers to get it right.

before I had the new tyre mounted to the new rim, I fitted the rim to the bike using all original spacers and measured out to swing arm and fender struts to see what it was. Calculated it to get the rim in the centre and all good now.

what they said centre the wheel with what ever tyre/wheel your using than make spacers to suit for pulley/disc /axel

Thanks robots but I've been down that track with the tyre sizes. I picked the most narrow tyre I could because I didn't want to go as wide as 200 to start with but the rims I put on didn't come in my standard rim size on the rear so I had to go up to a 200. As for machining it looks like you would have to somehow do this to the brake caliper mount it looks to be the spacer and also would have to be cut down at the caliper locating lug up in the swing arm. Everything looks spot on in the swing arm and I was bit worried about doing this. But it might have to come to that. 

Yes you are correct. I set the caliper mount up in a mill to machine off what was needed.

yep that's what you have to do on softails too ,to move it accross

Ok doing my home work to move the rim across 7mm by machining up spacer and calliper mount. Will I have to shim or add spacer to the rear drive pulley or will the drive belt find it's own spot on the front drive pulley. Is the front drive pulley tapered or will the belt run anywhere on it?

yep that's right what ever you take off the calliper you will need to add a spacer between pulley and hub
so it still runs in the same spot or the belt can / will wear strange due to miss alignment

I actually went +3mm on the pulley spacer from memory just to give the belt a bit more clearance to the new wider tyre. The front pulley is much wider than the rear so it has room to allow for that. Been running this set up for about 5 or 6 years with no dramas. The pulley bolts are critical. You will need to get longer ones to allow for the spacer, make sure they are grade 8, loctited and torqued to spec. You hear of a lot of them in the US coming loose or shearing off.

Thanks guys you've been a big help. Just one last thing, by shifting the wheel across did it affect your handling in anyway? pulling one way, speed wobbles, etc.?

Mine handles great, this mod has centred the wheel in the frame/swingarm. To tell you the truth I don't know what the factory wheel was like centre wise, I had to do this work as the new wheel I put on had a different offset for some reason.

Ok would anyone know the correct torque specs for the rear pulley bolts on a laced rim?. Been told so many different torques and ways to do it.

Hi,

new screws to be used, tighten to 60ft/lbs, back off 180 degreess then final tighten to 77-83ft/lbs

thanks

robots

err just my opinion but moving the back wheel to either side wont that make the tracking with the front wheel untrue ?

take it to a panel beater if your talking mm or mick hair get them to spread the strut bars a couple of mm with a porta pack

common conversion on Harleys , been done heaps of times Harley use to offer a wide tyre kit for the early tc softail with wider spacers and a machined calliper

Ok first thank you for everyone's feed back and help. The job is done and dusted! I moved the rim over 8mm total by machining the brake calliper mount down and adding a pulley spacer and made a new axel spacer for pulley side. I was worried about the tracking of the bike by moving the wheel over by 8mm witch is now centre of the rear fender. After a test ride I am not worried anymore because it runs great you can not tell any difference. it actually "seems" to be a little better handling. You can see that the tyre is running true where the bitumen is taking the shine off the new tyre. At the total cost of $230 for machining, pulley bolts and pulley spacer I am glad I went this way and did not go bending any part of my frame. Very happy thanks again.

Good job, sounds pretty much the same as what I did, glad it went well

good stuff well done