I feel your pain. I spent over an hour doing that myself when I got my new tires and applied my rim stripes. I do know that taking the brake cliper off didn't help any. You gotta finess it and keep at it. I will say this, once you get it in place you better have the axle ready to go in and a rubber mallet to bang it into place because everything doesn't stay aligned for long. I put my bike on the stands and positioned the wheel in place as best I could then lifted teh wheel from the top into position. The spacer kept falling out but I just kept at it. Afterwards I understood why dealerships charge so much for labor.
Tip for the spacers is to dab a bit of axel grease on the end to get them to stick to the bearing (just a bit to hold).
Roll the tire in, and loop the chain over the sprocket. I use a hammer on the ground, but a 2x4 as mentioned above would work to hold it up, roll it back and up a bit while you slide the axel back in.
If using the standard chain adjusters, I leave the alone so you don't have to redo the slack. For the Lightech ones, I back them off about 4 clicks to give some room to work with.
i pulled out the wheel and stuck my head in, as far as i can tell the caliper is upagainst the swing arm. It sat without the wheel in it for a couple days, is it possible that the swing tightened up?
I've not heard of that. I've left mine out for weeks no issue. The calliper has a casting on it (kind of triangle shape) that slides into the swing arm. If it is in the slot you are good there.
Only other think is to check the other side and make sure it is not pushing you too far to the right.
Check how well your cush drive/sprocket carrier is seated into the wheel. It has to be in as far as you can get it. Set the wheel rotor side down and weight all around your sprocket to seat it all the way down. I think you'll find it's not too bad if you do this and it's pretty much even all around. There's not a lot of extra play room to work with back there.
but seriously, I sit under the wheel and rest it on my thighs. I start the axle in and let it dangle, then line everything up as it sits on my thighs, and then jam that fucker in as fast as possible. it is like sex with me, but usually last a coupel seconds longer
I'll have to remember to bang on the sprocket carrier next time I have to take my wheel off. Last time it took me over an hour trying to finesse it in, with the wheel needing to slide in absolutely perfectly straight. Well, that, and the aforementioned swearing.
Ya, i just laid it down like Frayed suggested and compressed it like i was doing cpr. Also, 2 ceramic tiles are the perfect height for alignment. Once i had compressed the sprocket side i rolled it onto the tiles and slide the axle right in, took less than a minute.
For me it didn't work until I spent an hour trying to get it right then I went into the house and threw up my hands then told my wife, "I think I may have to end up taking it to e dealership afterall because I can't get the rear wheel back on." Then I went back out into tehgarage and got it. I see you gotit done but I was gonna suggest that you use a screwdriver or something to keep the brake pads from closing in on one another while lining the rotor up between the two.
I don't know if my brake hose is slightly shorter than others, but I have to remove the rear caliper from its bracket in order to get the wheel in and out, as I can't pull it far enough rearwards to get the bracket out of its slot in the swingarm.
That is an extra job I'm not happy about and believe me I've tried to avoid it. However it does seem to make the job a bit easier as the bracket is easier to get into position as the gap where the pads would be is a lot wider. So maybe consider removing the caliper from its bracket to make the job easier.
Another vote for captive spacers-much easier. My usual method is to lift with the left with the axle already in to the point where it is flush with the inside of the caliper bracket then try to shove it in. After a while I get tired, uncomfortable, frustrated and stop for a while-have a break and try again. It usually goes straight in then!
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