Over the last 10 years I've put nearly 80,000 miles on my other Honda scooters and I've mounted every tire used during that time. Along the way I started noticing that from time to time the wear line on the rear tire seemed offset, not centered on the tread. This didn't affect tracking or handling, it just looked wierd. After a few tire changes I learned that by bumping the swingarm UP just before tightening it, I could move the wear patch left and by bumping it down, I could move it to the right. After finding the right spot on each bike, I marked it by scribing a line and just now I realign it before torqueing it....that eliminated the issue o the wandering wear patch.
Of course they had a drum rear instead of a disc brake.
This past week, I had the opportunity to remove the swingarm.....on Someone else's Forza!
I still haven't worn out the OEM Dunlop but while riding in the Blue Ridge Mountains last week, I came upon a Forza stranded with a flat. We stopped to help the rider and I used my Stop and Go plug kit to plug his tire....we had him plugged and ready to ride in 20 minutes. The rider didn't feel comfortable with a plugged tire and asked if we would help him remove it so he could carry it to a local bike shop (about 60 miles away) and get a new tire. And then help him remount it .
We agreed.
That evening in the parking lot, before we loosened the swingarm bolts we made witness marks where the swingarm mounts on the engine, then proceeded to remove the rear tire. With the bolts loose, the rearmost end of the swingarm can move up/down about 3/8".
The next day while we were remounting the tire, I had the chance to test my theory. With all hardware snugged but not torqued, if I lifted up on the swingarm while rotating the wheel, we got a snick, snick, snick of intermittent contact during rotation. If I pushed down on the swingarm I could make the rotor drag through the full rotation of the tire. When we realigned the swingarm to the witness marks we made during disassembly, all drag noise ceased.
And that's where we tightened it down.
The service manual even includes a warning to this effect in section 18-5
Rear Wheel/Swingarm Removal:
*Before removing the swingarm [1] mark the two points [2] where the swingarm contacts the engine with paint. If the swingarm is not installed in the same position as the original position before removal, installing the muffler would be difficult.
This is where I think it all goes wrong!
The mechanic who is not familiar with this assumes it is a common sense straight forward teardown and disassembles the bike without marking anything. Later after he's torqued all the swingarm bolts, he tries to mount the muffler and can only get two bolts in. Now he loosens the two swingarm bolts and with the weight of the muffler on the swingarm, it drops to bottom limit of its travel. He jiggles it around to get the last bolt in and then retorques it, now, unfortunately, totally out of alignment.
Of course most of this information is only of use to those who do their own maintenance....
telling a "factory trained" mechanic how to work on your bike ranks right up there with sending your bowl of chili back to Chef Bruno with instructions to make it extra spicy.
but if your Forza is new and so far you haven't had any brake drag issues, YOU may want to mark the swingarm alignment BEFORE you take it in to have a new tire mounted??
Even a slack mechanic will use an alignment mark it its already there, right? Maybe?
these are the mount points mentioned:
TOP
BOTTOM
with witness marks
top
bottom
and if you already have a rear dragging pad issue with your Forza, that probably means you're on your second tire already...find a mechanically oriented friend and work your way through the alignment.
All bolts have to be torqued in sequence....
swingarm bolts
shock absorber bolt
brake caliper bolt
axle bolt
Good luck!
