Idler wheel & cable guide issues - 2009 Cheetah

[Hanksv]

2009 Cheetah.

I decided that I was going to try and straighten out my idler wheel lean last night. Loosened the limb bolts up and removed the cable. Then thought crossed my mind that I should check and see how well the idler wheel spins, so I took the string off and gave it a spin. The wheel does not spin freely. I removed the wheel from the limb and slid it onto the axel by itself - the axcel fits good through the bearing and the bearings spin smoothly. Upon closer examination I discovered a couple things: first, the spacers on each side of the wheel are the same diameter as the hub and fit so tight between the wheel and the limb that they cause friction; and second on one side of the wheel the bearing is no pressed in exactly flush (the bearing sticks out from the hub a tiny amount). I'm not sure if this should be fixed or exactly how to fix it. A person could sand the spacers down until there isn't any friction on the hub, but considering that there will always be side pressure on the wheel caused by the cable going to the cable slide, the hub is always going to rub on the spacer on the right side. It seems that making the spacer thinner will end up moving your wheel to the right side. I'm thinking that the best fix would be to sand the spacers down substantially, then get some sort of shims that are barely larger in diameter than the axel so that they would put all of the side pressure on the inner raceway of the bearing. I'm not sure if this is worth messing with. Any thoughts?

Another thing that I noticed. I have more than enough clearance from fletching to cable and string. Is there a way to adjust the guide rod on the 2009 cheetah? The rod itself is straigh. It goes into a housing that has does not appear to have any sort of adjustment. Anybody have info on this?

[Hoosieroutdoorsman]

As far as the spacers for the idler go, I sanded down the outside diameter to get the idler to spin freely, this won`t affect the length of them nor require any extra shimming. I am going to get a offset guide rod for mine, the tension is so much it has egg shaped my teflon slide and is pulling the cam to the left and causing it to bind and rub my cable serving to the point of needing replaced.

[peeker]

2009 Cheetah.

I'm thinking that the best fix would be to sand the spacers down substantially, then get some sort of shims that are barely larger in diameter than the axel so that they would put all of the side pressure on the inner raceway of the bearing. I'm not sure if this is worth messing with. Any thoughts?

You could do that. Getting the idler moving as freely as possible is a good thing and in theory should make the entire system more efficient, therefore faster. Only problem I could see is loading the bearing to the side like that will cause it to wear in that direction. That should not be a problem considering the fact that relatively speaking, they don't really spin that much compared to other applications where you would see similar bearings used (ie. electric motors in rc cars). At the most, if you had the bow for a number of years, you may need to replace the bearings. BTW... I'm not sure what the diameter of the axle is, but a good place to start for shims like that might be a hobby shop. They have shims in different thickness for electric motors.

[Hanksv]

Does your bow perform better after sanding the spacers down?

[bfisher]

What peeker said. You only need to sand a little bit from one spacer. Doesn't matter which one. Side loading won't be affected very much at all. By the way, the axle diameter is 3/16".

The idea of the dog-leg cable rod is a good one, too, especially on the shorter A2A bows. Turn the rod for minimal cable clearance and this should reduce some of that side loading, which in turn reduces the amount of limb twist (cam lean).

[Hanksv]

I might give the sanding a try. I'm going to see if I can find some thing steel shims to put between the spacers and the wheels too. If the cable pulls the wheel to one side and the hub of the wheel is going to rub against a plastic spacer, I think it would be preferable to have something smoother and harder than plastic for that wheel to contact. Especially if you keep it lubricated.

[peeker]

Check this out. A service kit for cam axles... Who would have guessed. All it has is e-clips and axle shims, but that's what you're looking for right.

[Hanksv]

Where can I find this service kit at?

[twindragon]

I had the same issu but i took my idler pully off and noticed that one berring dust cover was rippled on the side that sticks out a lil. So it was causing it to make grinding noise. Only had the bow for 2 weeks never dirfired etc. I also tried to take out the pully lean by twisting the right yoak witch did help it alot. BUt all in all. After 2 weeks of shooting it, was more maintaince than i wanted to deal with so took it back got the bowmadness.

[bfisher]

Where can I find this service kit at?

I have a couple kits from the days I shot for Golden Eagle. Figure out what you need and I'll mail you some. Don't have any metal spacers, though. Everything is plastic or nylon.

Barry