bent front axle?? if you had to guess

[shumard78]

ok so i went riding yesterday and i laid my 500 down pretty hard on the left side..i know my bars are a little tweaked  but it seems as though my front wheel is leaning a little to the right side fork a little bit..and if i line up my bars or clamps to where it should be straight my front fender is pointing right a little bit..like i said i know its hard to say with out seeing it but would my front axle be bent maybe? ..i didnt wreck all that bad so i couldnt see me bending the forks or anything? is it somewhat common to bend front axles like this by laying it down? i hit my front brake a little to hard and it washed out  and the front end just seems a lil outta whack ..if you had to guess what should i check for first?....thanks guys i know this is kind of a dumb question

[DoldGuy]

Sounds as you have twisted the tubes in the clamps. Put the bike on a stand & loosen the clamp bolts until you can rotate the forks with your hands. This should take care of it. The triple tree clamps only get torqued to 14ft lb for the lower & 16ft lb for the upper, do not over tighten as it will cause binding.

[shumard78]

aaah this makes some sence ...i did a few things and got it straightened out a bit but it is still just a tiny bit off ..im ordering new bars and i will also try this ...this makes good sence ...i appreciate it !! thanks

[BDI]

I like to take the front fender and number plate off so that I can get the forks,handlebars and front wheel all strait with each other. I loosen up the tripple clamp bolts so that everything can relaxe then get it all strait. the plastics always have some play so you cant base your front wheel alignement off of them. Taking the plastics off takes them out of the equation. Once you get the hard parts all in alignement then you can put the plastics back on and then aligne them with the front wheel. if you do it that way it will come out perfect.

[shumard78]

awesome!! thanks guys and BDI thats exactly what i did and it worked great. just seems like the next day i went out to the garage looked at my bike and it seemed all tweaked outta shape.so naturally i got nervous and was like "oh sh*t!!" i thought i bent something bad..but ya after taking off all the plastic and loosening up the triple clamps and bar clamps and mounts it just seemed to all come back together great...thank god i thought i bent a fork tube or worse! ..thanks again guys , now all i need is some renthals and some new grips and ill be good as new ..except for me im still a little soar and skinned up ..lol yeeehaw 

[Danger4u2]

Allot of times the bar cones are the problem with mis-aligned handle bars.  I use these.
http://www.scottsperformance.com/products.php?PartType=87