Suzuki V-Strom (VStrom) Owners Club DL250, DL650, DL1000 & DL1050
V-Strom specific discussion => V-Strom specific discussion => Topic started by: paulo on August 28, 2018, 13:22:19
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Just wondering if anyone can help with this. When the bike is hot there is a binding sound (like rubber on plastic, not metallic) that I've managed to eliminate to the front wheel for the complete rotation in both directions. After a couple of minutes at standstill, it's gone away. Brake discs aren't getting hot and pads are fine, not binding. I've removed the front wheel to check the bearings and they seem fine, just a tiny amount of play with the axle in and wheel removed, but I think that's the spacer. It rotates freely with no noise. There isn't any debris on the underside of the mudguard either. I can't totally eliminate the calipers, as by the time I've got changed and got the spanners out, the noise has gone. The bike's done 30k miles, the bearings are the originals and I'm running EBC HH pads. Any ideas please anyone?
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It does sound like binding brakes, not much else it can be other than wheel bearings.
I would strip and service the calipers, and change brake fluid if its more than a 3 years old or so.
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Check your right hand fork is aligned properly.
I have just had a similar experience and noted that there is a bit of flex in the lower part of the leg when tightening up the front axle.
I found a score mark on the disk which was caused by the brake pad carrier/caliper mount plate.
The wheel spindle when tightened up should be flush with the outside surface of the fork leg before you nip up the pinch bolt.
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:text-goodpost:
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Have you checked that your abs sensor has sufficient clearance from the sensor ring? IF indeed yours has abs. Mine was slightly touching and was making a noise intermittently.
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And again... :text-goodpost:
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Thanks for the posts everyone, very interesting. I had my local independent fit new Suzuki bearings to the loose wheel (total cost £25) as at that cost it wasn't worth not doing at this stage. I reassembled everything OK, but the speed sensor was rubbing badly against the ABS ring. Never had this issue before (I've removed the wheel many times for new tyres etc). I took the front wheel out again and reinstalled it. Everything torqued up to manufacturer specs. Bike rides OK, but sensor is is still tight against the ring although no binding noise after a short ride. I did remove the mudguard whilst doing this job as the bolts had seized up. Took me a full day and some new bolts to fix it. Silverback/Wurzel - the sensor gap is interesting me. How did you increase the speed sensor gap? Could the fitting of the bearings not be quite right, but to be honest they probably are?
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The plastic part of the sensor is held on by one bolt, I just removed it and shimmed it out a little to increase the clearance. The fact that yours seem to have got worse since the bearing change could mean there's a very slight difference in the bearing depth. I believe this would cause the sensor to be a little closer to it's ring.
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Shimming out the speed sensor with a fibre tap washer has got round the issue for the time being. However, I think I've found the problem. By chance another 650 AL2 parked up next to me yesterday, and I managed to visibly compare them. The outside of the left hand spacer (non abs side as you face forward sitting on the bike) on the 'good' bike fits flush with the wheel, whereas mine protrudes slightly. So I took the front wheel off again this morning, and the inside of this spacer sits against the bearing. Therefore the bearing is too far towards the outside of the wheel. Anyone know if it's possible to do this when fitting new bearings, or is there a 'stop' it fits up against? Is there any way of refitting the bearings without damaging them, or will I need to order another set. I've rechecked the part number of the bearings 08133-62037.
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Sorry, I forgot to ask a favour. I'd be ever so grateful if anyone could have a look and check if the outside of the large spacer (the non abs side) fits flush against the wheel and post back. Cheers
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Item 7 in the picture?
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You have Internal spacer(9), if this is correct length, the bearing should go back to a shoulder in the wheel hub casting.
You can set this against the shoulder by removing the dust seal from the hub, getting a socket or bit of tube that will sit on the outer bearing shell, not the inner one,and tapping it back with gentle hammer hits.you will know when it's seated as it sounds and feels different, but in the event only takes a few firm but restrained taps.
Rest the wheel on an old cushion or tyre when doing this, it stops the other side of the wheel from getting scuffed up, and helps with the sound change when the bearing beds down.
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If there's a problem that side with the bearing or spacer when the spindle is torqued up the spindle wouldn't sit flush with the outside of the fork leg with the pinch bolts loose? I think your models spindle slides in from that side?
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I recall Greywolf stating there was a set order to installing bearings otherwise you can drive them in too far and cause alignment issues as the second bearing is stopped by the spacer not the wheel.. Looking at the service manual, the left bearing should have been installed first, then the spacer then the right.
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Thanks for all your replies. Took the bike down to the mechanic who replaced the bearings, and demonstrated the problem. A few taps on the left bearing and everything now seems to line up. The spacer (diagram item 7 Rusty Nuts post) now fits flush with the wheel, and there's a proper gap between the speed sensor and sensor ring. I reckon that he probably installed the right hand bearing first, which left it sitting up against the wheel hub rather than the spacer (see last post from UK_Vstrom650), thereby leaving the RH bearing too far out when it was installed. I assume that when he tapped home the LH bearing, it must have pushed the spacer and right hand bearing back over a bit? Just one thing though - if I loosen the pinch bolt now (leaving the spindle torqued up), there's a very small gap between the inside of the LH fork and the outside of the aforementioned spacer which I can get rid of by leaning my knee against the fork whilst tightening the pinch bolt up. Do you reckon that's OK?
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From your description, as long as the axle is retaining the bearing with its shoulder, the fork leg will have free float on the cylindrical extension of the axle it mounts onto, the pinch bolts clamp the fork leg to the axle.
A good thing to do once the axle is torqued up, is to bounce the forks to compress them, allowing the leg that is floating to find its sweet spot, eliminating fork stiction, or binding, then tighten the pinch bolts.
I'm not familiar with the setup on your bike, so wait for confirmation from someone who is, but it is a fairly generic process.
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+1 on that :text-goodpost: wurzel. I had to loosen the pinch bolts, remove the fork brace and bounce the front end up and down to get it to seat correctly at the bottom near the pinch bolts.
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Thanks for that. Can anyone tell me if there is normally a gap of 1.5 - 2mm between the fork leg (the one with the pinch bolt) and the spacer? The spacer can be slid back and forth across this gap. I don't remember seeing this before the bearings were replaced, but maybe never noticed. 2012 650 AL2
Beginning to wish I'd never had them replaced, should have been such a simple job!
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Bet there's more than a few v Strom owners with front discs not centered with the calipers if that's the case.
If anyone reading this fits new discs and find them binding against the caliper carrier then chances are your bearings haven't been fitted correctly.
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Paulo, no there shouldn't be a gap between the spacer and the fork leg. They should be flush with no movement between them.
When I had a small gap between them, loosening the lower pinch bolts in the forks (ie not the ones at the top under the handlebars but the rest inc the axle) and bouncing the front end slightly can settle the forks and realign. Then tighten the axle and pinch bolt then the rest. If that doesn't fix the gap then I'd revisit the bearings being not quite right.
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It does not sound right to me if the spacer is free to slide on the axle, I think we need the advice of someone familiar with this model to ascertain what is going on.
Without seeing it in person it is not easy to asses any issues.
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It seems to me that there is a little confusion about how these axles should fit,so I have been out and taken a couple of measurements from my Wee.There is no visible clearance as you would expect between the speedo sender and the NS fork leg (left).There is 52 thou. (1.32mm) between the offside (right) fork leg and the abs pickup holder.I would expect this clearance because the clamp must always be loose when the axle spindle is tightened,this gives the right hand fork leg a chance to self centralize before the clamp is tightened.If there was no clearance there are a couple of possibilities,it has been incorrectly assembled,or even one of the fork tubes is very slightly bent.It needs this clearance as there is only about 15thou.between the pickup and the reluctor ring,which near enough to get a good signal.I have fitted literally dozens of electronic governors and the rule of thumb when fitting the MPU is to turn it in until it just touches the flywheel tooth and then back half a turn.Which on a 5/8th UNF thread in not a lot of clearance.The spacer should not be free on the axle as it’s the clamping action of the axle bolt that keeps everything in line.Another observational is that the axle is not quite flush with the outer edge of the right hand fork leg,it’s just a smidge inboard,possibly 10 thou.I have never seen any bearing fitted in any hub that does not go in flush into its housing,even on taper rollers,the outer races go hard onto the shoulder and the inners are then adjusted up to them.Normally the length of the bearing spacer is the same as the distance between the two inner faces of the hub housing when fitted.There maybe instances where this is different but I cannot remember seeing one,that’s my two pence worth.Sorry it’s a long read,any comments or additions to throw any more light on the subject.
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Ian is right,the spacer should not be free to slide, the axle should clamp the assembly up tight when torque up.
This as said, leaves the other side with clamp bolts to line up then pinch onto the axle.
It is so much more complicated trying to see what is going on here without hands on .
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Here's two old pictures I have on my phone of how the front should sit. I'll try to take some better pictures shortly.
When I had a gap issue on the pinch bolt (clutch side) I could fit a cable tie between the spacer and fork leg.
The service manual (download section) shows the order that the bearings need to be installed. The first one on both wheels seats fully into the hub and the second one sits against the inner spacer, allowing for the inner spacer to move side to side slightly - this is not fully in its housing. Greywolf gave me this warning before I changed my bearings and said that it's a common mistake to drive bearings fully in on the wrong side first which causes alignment issues on both front and back.
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Hopefully these pictures will help...
(And yes the bike needs a clean)
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Thanks again everyone, the pics are fantastic and confirm what I thought - there shouldn't be a gap between the spacer and the fork leg (the 'clutch' side is the one I'm looking at mainly). I have loosened the front wheel and removed the brake calipers. I then tightened up the front wheel spindle and everything looks OK to start with and then as I carry on tightening for the last third, a gap appears between the 'clutch' side spacer and the fork. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this to me means the bearings are still not correctly installed. I removed the wheel again, and there is NO movement in the internal spacer that sits in between the two bearings in any direction. I know this was not the case before the bearings were replaced. As I said in a previous post, I think the bearings were installed in the incorrect order, and then in order to rectify the clutch side spacer protusion, the 'clutch' side bearing was tapped home. This presumably shuffled the internal spacer and 'brake' side bearing along a bit. So what's the problem now? Page 2D-3 of the workshop manual shows an unspecified clearance 'a' between the 'brake' side bearing and the internal spacer. How can this be achieved? Do you think the bearings should be removed and the whole procedure carried out from the beginning in the correct order? Beats me how an independent mechanic would know about the correct procedure in this particular case
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A piccy (not great) that shows the in 'gap' daylight
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Sorry, this one shows it better
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You should be able to push the inner spacer sideways slightly but not back and forwards toward the bearings. If it won't move it's too tight and may show why there's a gap I.e. not seated properly.
May be worth speaking to the garage and asking them to redo the bearings again.
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Hello
I think your worrying about nothing.
I say this, as this afternoon I fitted a new tyre and new brake pads on the front of my 650 L2.
This is a picture taken a few minutes ago after buttoning everything up to the required specs.
Cheers
Crazyhorse
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I had a wurring noise from front of bike between 15 -40 mph, after thinking it was wheel bearings and caliper it turned out to be the speedo drive needed cleaning and re greasing. All fine since.
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Well, mine doesn't have that gap near the front wheel. It did have it once, but it was also possible to force the gap closed and while holding the fork leg in, tighten the axle pinch bolt which held it in place. However as I was sure that I shouldn't be forcing the fork leg towards the wheel, I undid the pinch bolt, loosened the axle, removed the fork brace and loosened both bolts in the lower triple clamp/steering yoke. I then bounced the front end up and down a few times, then tightened the axle to spec which closed the gap. I then tightened the pinch bolt, the both bolts in the triple clamp, and refitted the fork brace. That gap has remained closed ever since.
Whilst you probably can ride the bike without issue, my OCD wouldn't let me, and I doubt any manufacturer would design that gap to be there - they'd surely want the spacer to be flush to the fork leg??
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You should try to grease the contacts between wheel axle and bearing / spacers, a little.
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I experienced this whilst changing my Front tyre recently, and ended up with a small gap (2mm) and this was after bouncing the forks etc, And I used a speed clamp to pull in the gap before tightening the pinch bolts, I've had this on previous bikes Yamaha TDM900 etc, It's not uncommon but an excessive gap is something to be investigated, loosening the fork yolks bolts and centralising things again usually sorts it.
https://www.screwfix.com/p/irwin-quick-grip-18-quick-change-bar-clamp/82300
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Speaking for myself I would never use a clamp to force the fork legs. I would be concerned that this would put pressure on the sliders and bushes and cause undue wear.
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You are correct Brockett, it will put friction onto the bushings in the forks that they are not designed to take, they often have a thin coating yo reduce friction, and that can soon be worn away. :text-goodpost:
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On my new V-strom 2018, I have too this space of 2 mm.
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And how much pressure do you think will be applied????? I merely use as a hands free aid whilst you tighten the pinch bolts, If put in the correct position through the wheel at a lower level It's several inches below where the bushing is located!!!!!
And what coating is on the bushes please??? I can only think of oil myself as the bush is made of one material only!
And What pressure will there be if the bearings, spacers, are all OE equipment and fitted correctly and the lower fork legs are butted up against them? these factors dictate the pressure on the fork legs..........So is it such a good post after all??????
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The bushings are normally coated about 50 microns thick with copper, or Teflon, or both depending on the bushings.
The base material will be a harder material, if the coating wears through the harder base metal can wear other parts, such as the chrome plating.
The idea is to have the forks running parallel to each other to reduce friction, and premature wear of the coating,if the forks are pulled in to ' bow leg ' them it can, as the forks compress, side load the bushings.
Its no big deal, but those are the facts as I understand them,the normal procedure is to compress or bounce the forks a few times to let them find parallel,then tighten the pinch bolts, the axle having been tightened first should preload the spacer and bearing inner shells to hold their position via the axle collar.
I do apologise if I caused you to flutter over the exclamation cursor, I had no intent to be disparaging.
I am somewhat autistic, and at times can be clumsy in my mannerisms,no excuses, just the truth, you would laugh at the mess I get into sometimes, I have to! lol
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Hi Paulo,
Did you finally manage to sort out that gap? I changed my bearings on a 2018 DL650 and noticed a similar gap.