47 Chief not tracking straight and pulls to the left.....

[Tom McBride]

Hi guys,

My 47 Chief will not track straight down the road. That is to say
that the bike wants to veer off to the right rather hard while
riding. To compensate I have to "favor" the Left side of the bike in
order for it to go straight and the moment that I let my hands off
the bars the bike wants to go right and my body wants to lean to the
left to "try" to correct it but the pull is too hard.

I have tried this on several road surfaces and it is always the same.
The pull to the right is continual and persistant.

Can anyone please lead me in the correct direction for diagnostics
and correction of this problem?
I really don't know where to begin.

Thanks you in advance for all comments and suggestions.

Respectfully,

Tom McBride
So. Cal.

[indianut]

Tom, check the Offset of the wheels. Lots of the time they have been laced incorrectly. I have found that the best way to do this is to remove the front fender, and mount each wheel to the front one at a time. Then make sure that EACH wheel is in the center of the fork. There is a spec for the offset, but this will tell you for sure. If they are off it will NOT go in a straight line. How is the VL coming?

[Tom Lovejoy]

I would get a long florescent tube, their very straight. Place it against the tires, get it as high as you can up off the ground. Check to see how straight the tires are lined up, if its straight, the tube should touch both tires square. If it touches one up front but not at the back, their off. Try adjusting them, get em straight/ might be an easy fix. Thats what I would check first, could be the spoke lace job too. If not I would start looking closely at the forks and frame, look for old signs of damage. My Scout had damage to the right front fork and the handle bars were bent. Hope its something minor, lots of machines out there with those problems being ridden today. Best to get it all trued up though, ever take your Cheif out around PV? Hope to run into ya - good luck Tom.

[jww]

Try measuring the distance from the center of the front axle to the center of the rear axle, comparing left to right. I've had better luck using this method than the straight edge method. If this proves true then pursue confirming the wheel offset.

[fabercycle]

There's another "dog-tracking' oddity that Chiefs with plunger frames can have. If you have a broken rear frame plunger spring, the bike will go crooked down the road.

[Joe G]

Mine does that a bit too. I went so far as to strip it down to the frame and send it out to a specialist to have it straightened. Apparently the frame had a few tweaks in it (from the factory) and they fixed it. Five hundred dollars later it tracks just like it did before, I attribute a lot of it to the crowned road surfaces and it will pull more as the front tire wears. I've learned to live with it.

Joe

[fillibuster]

Mine scared me, unstable at 65 mph. Confusing, it hadn't been that way the previous 10 years ('course, a lot of that was w/ sidecar). I'd also changed out the rear wheel and brake drum recently.
I have a 4' x 12' steel table, flat and true enough for frame straightening. I was surprised at how easily the frame "moved". That made me believe that the abusive side car time had changed my alignment. But I didn't cure things for the solo until I adjusted the rear wheel in the frame to the center. Now I can ride 80 with my hands in the air. ... should do the same treatment to my 03 Road King, but, it's harley worth it.