I could swear that I had a thread concerning this issue here someplace, but no search turns one up....so...here we go again.

I had noticed the rear tire on my 98 Road King was running too far to the right. Making a long story short, I went into it and discovered a previous "somebody" had the washers and spacer washer (not axle spacers) on the pulley-side of the axle and not the rotor side. EVERY diagram I have seen places these spacer washers on the RH (rotor) side of the axle behind the bearing. I also quickly discovered the axle nut was barely more that hand tight. Sounds suspicions doesn't it? Maybe if that axle nut had been torqued down to 60-65 pounds....could have seized the axle if the spacer washers were on the wrong side?

I have thoroughly cleaned and inspected the bearings and the races on both sides of the axle and they look just fine. I reassembled the parts as-per the diagram (spacer washers on the RH side) and the wheel spins freely, has no detectable side-play or any issue that I can find.

I am trying to wrap my pea-brain around what would/could happen if the axle-nut was fully torqued. I think there is a reason it was so loose....maybe it bound the axle assembly when it was tightened?

I'm wondering if I'm okay here. I see no damage to the bearings or the races and it rolls just fine. Maybe everything simply tightened-up on the inner bearing races and the spacers and nothing was damaged?

It has ran this way since the last time the bearings were serviced and I estimate that to have been thousands of miles ago. The bearings on both ends of this bike were practically dry and the seals had not been pulled in quite some time.

 

From the factory a large percentage of Harleys have the rear wheel offset to the pulley side, not centered as you would think. If the bike has a larger tire then the previous owner may the wheel centered with washers, if the pulley has spacers behind it then he offset the axle the same distance as the pulley.

As long as the bearings have the correct inner spacer in the rear wheel, it will be hard to mess up but still need to check pressure on the bearings as you tighten the axle nut, don't assume it is right. If the bearings have slight play after tightening the axle nut, I have sanded the inner spacer on a flat surface in a figure 8 pattern to a apply slight load to the bearings.

 

That makes perfect sense and my line of thinking was the same.....as long as you have the right number/thickness of washers and spacer washers "in the string" it may not matter which side their on, it's just a matter of which way you want to push the wheel. In this case, the wheel was pushed (offset) to the right (rotor side) with the spacers on the left (sprocket side) to the point there was a very obvious difference in fender-to-tire clearance. Plenty on the left and barely enough on the right.

I guess you never know what some former owner/dealer did to a used bike you purchase until you go in there and look. The spacer washers had to have been moved to the sprocket side for a reason I suppose. It all seems to work out better with the spacer washers on the rotor (right side) in this case. The drive pulley has ample width to allow the belt to run and find itself without any danger of climbing the lip.

Every manual or parts-house diagram I've seen places the washers and spacer washer on the right (rotor) side, so if the belt tracks, the wheel spins and all seems well....I guess that's where I'll leave them.