s2cmpugh said:
My main concern is alignment, are the tick marks on the swing arm acccurate?
That really does vary from bike to bike, over my many years of motorcycling (34) I have learn't simply not to trust them.
I always use a set of vernier gauges to adjust the alignment as it really is an important area for the ride of the bike, the large washer behind the axle nut is the same diameter on both sides so is a useful place to measure from, then I measure back to a common place at the rear of the swing arm as in the pictures.
Get it out of alignment by a few mm and it changes the steering geometry quite significantly.
When you have the rear axle lined up and the right amount of slack ( 3 fingers under the chain near the lowe chain pad works for me) I then insert a small 10mm wrench in between the chain and the rear sprocket below the swingarm and rotate the wheel anti-clockwise, this pulls the wrench in between the sprocket and the chain and pulls it tight.
Now you can tighten up the adjusting lock nuts and the main axle nut without fear of the wheel moving out of alignment.
Enclosed are some pics of the process:
Oh, and by the way, it looks as though my YZ250 and FZ6 mated and produced a baby, see the last pic.
Skippy