Bent/Tweaked Swingarm???

[Nicholaschase29]

I had bought a parts bike with a 3" over V&H (or so i've been told) Swingarm. I finally got around to putting it on and the wheel and swingarm seem to be displaced to the left. At first I was thinking it may be that way to fit larger wheel/sprocket combos but something just doesn't look right. it looks like it angles to the left.

The swingarm is in great shape (no signs of previous crash) and the donor bike was also in excellent shape. I don't think i'm missing any spacers or anything where the swinger attaches to the frame and i believe the angle of the swingarm is fixed by the mounting bolt anyway.

Here are some pictures... Anyone have an idea of what might be going on? I can re-arrange the stack up of the wheel spacers to center the wheel but then it just looks wrong.

[tatu]

Hard to tell, it does look a bit lopsided, does the chain run true? and you could try clamping a straight edge to both sides of the rear wheel and check the front wheel for evenness.

[Nicholaschase29]

You could tell even before i put the wheel on. Here are more pics with the wheel off.

[SqDancerLynn1]

For what ever reason it looks bent

[tatu]

It does look a bit off, but if you squint along the chain is it perfectly straight? and when you tighten the axle nut does it squeeze up the arm? if the answer is yes for the chain thats good and if the arms don't sqeeze up then thats good too. Back to the straight edge test.
Salty Monk and Jon Kat might be able to shed some light.

[Guest]

It does look off sided abit. Has the bike ever been down? The reason I ask is about 15 years ago I was rebuilding a 83 750E and it looked off sided too. I went through with the straight edges and strings from the neck and checked all the geometry, and it turned out that when the bike was crashed it actually pushed the rear section where the plastic tail piece is attached giving the illusion that the swing arm was out of alinement. Use straight edges and strings you'll find the problem.

[Agemax]

support the arm at the right height then remove the bottom shock mount bolts,swing the shocks up away from the arm.
now swing the shocks back down and see if the shocks line right up with the mounts on the arm.if they do then i would say its straight. if you have to flex the shocks sideways to get them to line up with the mounts then something is defo out of line somewhere

[Nicholaschase29]

I dropped a plum-bob from the outisde of the frame down to the swinger, the same distance back on each side. Here's what it's showing.... you can see the gap between the plumb bob on the left side of the swing arm (point of the bob was placed tangent to the top of the swingarm).

[Agemax]

are you sure the bike is dead level,being propped up on that jack? the whole bike looks slightly off level to me

[hampshirehog]

Don't rely on the frame under the seat being true.

I reckon the only way you're going to be able to see this one is by running a straight edge through to the front wheel.