justin_o_guy2
Serious Thumper
Offline
What happened?
Posts: 55279
East Texas, 1/2 dallas/la.
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I did some slow yet torturous bending & adjusting on one of the guides.When I was done, new chain, torqued up guide & stilll the tensioner was poking out WAY too far to make me happy. I like the mod that adds the length & a new bolt hole to press the tensioner deeper into itself. Just got a welder, so next time Im in there, I'll add a tab & get more miles outta the chain. I still think its really important to oil the chain well before installing it. Mine is in a quart jar & is submerged in oil. It wont start dry. Someone has done extensive research into these chains & even contracted from a manufacturer for an order.My memory for such details is the pits. Maybe theyll jump in with some of what was learned. Seems the "stretch" as it is called is really wear at the pins. How much the chain eats on the sprockets( IIRC) is minimal, compared to the wear at the pins adding up to create a longer chain. The "stretch" isnt even much, but the design, with the diameter of the sprockets,& distance between them leaves only a small gap between the chain headed Up & the Chain going back down. My chain , when the miles run vs. the "stretch" on it was figured, indicated approximately 7,000 miles left on the life of the chain, BUT, My tensioner was at 18MM, so, as Mike is pointing out, somewhere there is a weak link in the design. ( YES that Was a pun),I tried to compensate by bending on the guide I could get out & back in w/o pulling the head, but how much that accomplished is hard to say. Considering the amount the tensioner stuck out with the new chain on, ehhh, might not have done much.
I would really like to see how far the tensioner is sticking out on a new engine, OR, any engine with new giudes, sprockets & chain.
I hope you can make up some better giudes. I also think part of the problem is the tensioner itself.I think the teeth are too close together on the ratchet & it "Clicks" when the thing cools & pulls too hard on the chain when the engine warms & the cylinder gets taller. Someone analyzed this some time back, unsure of the findings, Re: Memory, sorry. IF the guides would take up the slack & not get rigid but would press against the chain & keep it from allowing the tensioner to "Click" before the chain was loose enough to avoid being stretch by the jug growing taller when the engine warms up, then maybe that would help out. This could be part of the reason for the disparity in chain life between riders. If someone makes several town runs a day & the bike goes theu 3 or 4 warming/cooling cycles in a day, then the tensioner has had more opportunity to "Click" on a cooling cycle, as opposed to someone putting the same or even more miles on one & not stopping anywhere long enough to allow too much cooling.
POssible? Plausible?
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