Noticed my chain was real loose. Adjusted it and then cleaned and lubed (wax). While turning the tire in neutral the chain will go from being at the tension I set it to very tight and then slightly looser. As it gets tighter the front sprocket makes a kind of ratcheting sound, and then it loosens up again. It appears to do it in a pattern, but the chain links don't seem all to tight in any one place, although the links are tighter in some places than they are in others. The bike has near 15K on it, but I've taken pretty decent care of the chain. There is no visible rust and no excessive grime. The sprockets appear to have plenty of life left on the teeth. I did also noticed that the front sprocket appears to a have a small amount of lateral play in it. The bolt is tighened to torque specs. I was just wondering if there is a bearing in the front drive sprocket that could have gone bad or if it is just my chain. Any help would be greatly appreciated. TIA
Your chain is actually stretched but it is not uniform so it has tight and loose sections. Be careful not to overtension it or you can do serious damage to the countershaft bearing and possibly the engine cases. The best thing to do is get a new set of sprockets and a new chain to go with them. I'm not sure how your countershaft sprocket mounts but it is not uncomon for them to float on the shaft a bit. Hope that helps!
Dude, your chain is shot. No way you're going to have the correct tension all the way around once it starts going like this. 15k miles is not too bad for life. As Jethro said, get a new chain, and you might as well replace the sprockets while you're at it, they're not expensive and it's hard to see wear on the teeth. A little side play is normal in the front, it's not cranked down against anything. You could invest in (or borrow) a decent chain tool and do the replacement yourself, it's not that difficult, especially if you have a Dremel tool to make quick work of removing the old one. HTH, Rod
New Stealth rear sprocket, front DID and a 530VM X-ring on the way. Ordered the Chain Tool also. They only had the rear sprocket in 45T so should see a slight increase in off-the-line acceleration. Not much but some. Kept the front at 16T.
