I recently bought an '04 w/16k miles. I love it! Today I attempted to adjust/tighten the chain. I loosened the pinch bolt, used the cresent/half moon wrench on the appropriate teeth/grooved area. I initially went the wrong way and ended up moving the unit to the left (on the chain side of the bike), which severely loosened the chain. When I attempted to go in the opposite direction, the unit would not budge (to the point where the moon wrench is gouging the metal of the adjust teeth/grooves). Incedentally, the unit will now not move to the left or the right. Is this a technique error? Has anybody experienced or heard of this before. What can I do to tighten it back to the right? Thanks for responding.
Perhaps your chain was made out of substandard materials and it already stretched out to the max....or try spraying some NAPA penetrating lubricant where the spanner wrench goes and let it sit for a while, the adjustment nut thing might be stuck. 16,000 miles is not to much for a chain but you never know, I hear RK chains suck so thats why I went with the EK chain (much stronger) and they make a nifty press-link materlink gizmo that works great, I have 14k on mine and it still looks like new. Hope this helped.
Make sure your pinch bolt is backed off enough. If you just loosened the pinch bolt by just "cracking" it, it will only give you enough room to slightly move/slide the rear sprocket. You don't have to completely remove the pinch bolt but make sure to loosen it several rotations. With the pinch bolt nice and loose, you should be able to slide the rear sprocket in both directions.
