Hello chaps and chapess' i've just picked up my second hand 848 and it it felt a little twitchy on the front so i checked the tyre to find it worn unevenly on the right hand side. ordinarily i would put this down to roundabouts and the such but the bike has done 5000 miles and its like 4000 of them its been banked over. The tyre itself also looks slightly pitted in the area of concern. I can only assume this is not normal due to the great reviews this bike has got! Ive checked for play in the right side wheel bearing and tyre pressures and all appear to be fine, so does anyone have any other suggestions? all advice would be greatly appreciated. thank you.
i had this last year after a tour of Spain. The wear rate was dramatically different on the right side of the front and it was toast after about 3k miles. Having toured the same roads before i had never had that same problem so i doubted it being camber or roundabouts etc. Replaced the front tyre (Diablo Rosso) and it's been fine since so i put it down to a bad tyre. Had several sources slate the Rosso tyre and say the Rosso 2 was much better.
A friend of mine had same issue with a 1098s, turned out the front suspension was different on left to right side.
Also most roads have some camber sloping away to the left, so wear on the right might be more pronounced
Thats what i thought... I've got Rosso's on mine too... Whats the best way of checking the forks are parallel?
Measure how far they are thru the yokes I'd imagine My BSBs used to wear a little unevenly but as the front only last 1500 miles it didnt matter too much
As bradders has said and also check that front wheel is parallel to the rear wheel with a long straight edge aligned with the back wheel and then measure from the side straight edge to the front tyre at a couple of points. If front and back wheel are not aligned you will in effect be pushing the tyre sideways and this will cause excessive wear on one side.
Forgive my ignorance, but unless the frame is twisted how can front and rear be out on an 848? If the front isnt back properly, ie a spacer wrong/missing it wont fit back together properly in my experience
If the swingarm is shimmed like the Ess-esses, and is incorrectly shimmed so the swingarm is offset too much, then it will put the front and rear wheels out of line, thus making the bike crab slightly and wearing the front tyre on the 'leading' edge.......... So as catweazle said..........check the alignment with straight edges or string........ AL
But it wont fit back will it, the swingarm? Thought these things either fit, or they dont, so shimming incorrectly isnt really an option
I don't know how the 848 swingarm is fitted, but assuming it is the same principle as SS swingarms, the amount of shims either side can be varied, so if there is too much on one side and not enough on the other, it will still fit, but not be aligned to the front wheel........ Stating the obvious, the Ducati is unlike most other bikes inasmuch that the swingarm is fitted to the engine; however, a rear wheel can be skewed in the swingarm on other bikes and the front wheel self aligns to the rear wheel making the frame out of line with the wheels and gives the appearance of crabbing. The Ducati rear wheel when straight in the swingarm but the swingarm is offset makes the front wheel offset as well, so although they may seem parallel (but not necessarily in direct alignment) the front wheel is being pushed against one edge more than the other. That's what I reckon anyway.......:wink: AL
It's a single sider so I wouldn't think chain etc would line up. Can see on a twin sider how it can be out (been there, done that) but beauty of 848 is its idiot proof.
Even though it is a single side swingarm, surely it would be shimmed either side at the pivot point...............so it would be the same as a twin sider from the point of view of it being too offset............and if you have ever had to line the chain up with the sprocket, it can easily be got wrong......the SS front sprocket can be slightly wiggly on the shaft, so I assume others can as well. When I swapped over my swingarm, I lined the sprockets up and found that I didn't need a shim on the left side (originally it was the real thick one...about 2mm........probably inserted at the factory)........then I looked at my straightedge and found it had a very slight kink in it, so I tried again with the string method.............yep, it needed the really thick shim as it originally had. But, having run the bike and looked at how the chain sits on the sprocket I think that the shim should be a tiny bit thinner but I can't be bothered to do it using all the thin ones...........however, I reckon that getting the shimming of the swingarm by only 0.25mm, it probably won't show at the chain, but it would be amplified considerably over the length of the bike. AL
The 848 swing arm isn't shimmed like ss etc as the engine cases do not support the bearing for the swing arm pin I think will be more likely as motioned above suspension settings different each side Poor tyre carcus
