Help With Rear Wheel Out Of Alignment

Hello, I recently purchased a 1982 Yamaha XJ650. I've loved this bike and it runs great and drives fine. Although, one day a friend told me that my wheel was very slanted.

When I put the bike up on the stand I saw my wheel was slanted to the right. Its not straight to the bike at all and when I let off the hand bars I can feel the bike slant to the right.

Is there any way to adjust this to get the wheel back to straight? Has anyone else had this issue? Honestly just trying to figure out if its worth taking it in or if I can do it on my own.

 

If its slanting to the right, I would suspect that the swing arm is bent. You could do a rough check by putting it on the center stand and measure both sides where the axel is mounted the ground. Or remove the swing arm and check for a bent condition on a flat surface making sure the pivot point is parallel with the flat surface then measure at those rear points.

 

Looks like bent swinging arm to me too. The coils on the springs look closer together on the left shock absorber than the right and if the swinging arm was straight that could only happen if the spring adjusters were at different heights.

 

I would agree, swing arm must be bent. In addition, I would be concerned about the state of the swingarm bearings.

Swingarms can be gotten for a song and a dance on eBay. Bearings are not expensive either.

If I were you, I would get my hands on a replacement swingarm, refinish it, replace the swingarm bearings, and be good to go. It's a fair amount of work and easier said than done, but that's what I would do. The tricky part is the bearing races in the swingarm - they are kind of a pain to remove - you will need to buy/borrow the proper race puller.