Hello. Just thought i would share my tensioner. Im sure you seen a million but to me, is beautiful inside.

With SO much time idle as of lately I started the search for the source of the noise that is driving me nuts, it led me this way since valves are checked in clearance.

Unfortunately I dont have means to access the chain to replace or check so tensioner it is.. for now..  
Anyway since I already have an older (unused) gasket hanging on my wall, I thought why not take a peek. Its on 20k mi after all   More gasket to come although it would be very nice to do in one go-around.

Its been a few years since i've gotten my hands greasy and dang it feels nice to get dirty and tear shat apart.

measured 20.25mm out  

fix it now with a modded tensioner, or else kiss that bike goodbye.

I just saw the batman icon and did not look at the name, I was just about to post 'how can this be possible, batman'? when I see it's not batman it's mattman.

I've had a versy tensioner ready to drop in for a while and last time I looked there was still 6mm of travel to go, it dropped down to the 6mm but it stayed there for a while so last time I opened her up I put the versy on anyway on the first hole and said to the gf, whose bike it is, that even if the chain gets a bit loose at least the tensioner won't pop out and destroy the bike, so do keep an ear out for any extra sounds.

I've had a spare Athena green paper clutch cover gasket sitting here ready to use but even though I've had the cover off now about eight times, the original one is still good, and in fact I will never be using an after market gasket because I now see why the original is made of coated metal, it does not stick and it does not leak and it goes on and on, and makes taking the cover off much easier.

The clutch cover gasket is one OEM part that is well worth the cost. Same with the fuel hoses on a gs500, they're about $150 for all three, as opposed to $20 for do it yourself hoses.

Hiko wrote on 04/15/20 at 01:52:59:


Really depends on the condition its in.  If you never opened it up there is a good chance that when you pop the cover off the gasket will tear and pieces of it may be left behind that you would need to scrape off and put on a new gasket.  If you hear the noise it would be a good idea to stop riding and order a gasket and modded tensioner and switch it out to be safe.

I took my clutch cover off and the gasket came off clean The adjuster was out 14mm the bike has done 9477Kms so only 4mm to go .
This has made me a little nervous so I decided to do some thing about it
 Here is what I came up with
The post that supports the tensioner has a long thread into the engine block so by putting 3mm of washers behind it it is possible to run a guide arm over the 12mm part of the post and extend the tensioner
It all fits OK and hopefully will make the tensioner safe from overextending
The guide looks to be in good shape from what I could see of it
The extension of the tensioner would depend on the bend of the guide so it may have been extended quite a way from new
 As has been said before not a very good design

Hey Hiko, that's a pretty clever contraption you came up with.  If possible, can you post a picture with it installed?  Can you keep us posted on how it works out, maybe do a test report?

Thanks, Mike

I have decided to abandon this method of curing my tensioner woes
I feel their is insufficient clearance between it and the oil gallery inside the clutch cover [1mm] to prevent it tapping against the cover so at this stage I think I will just extend the plunger and do regular checks
The tiny tension pin into the thin plunger wall does not seem robust to me
as a real solution maybe I am wrong. I would have thought Suzuki after 34 years would have fixed this issue.

Before.