I have about 20,000 miles on mine since doing that and have maybe 1mm wear. It has to be checked every 10,000 or so, but I think without the follower bending, the chain itself will last a long time.

By using a bolt with a nut, I was able to be sure the flats were level and parallel and whenever I took it out to measure it was easy to get it back into the mill at the same place it was the previous time.

This is what the piece looked like with the remainders of the "donor" bolt.

I also was able to pick up all my freshly plated parts today!

There are nuts/bolts from several cylinder heads, from the chassis of this project, several pulley hub bolt sets, and a lot of old metric nuts/bolts for other stuff that I will use as needed.

I spent an awful lot of prep time with degreasing, a Phosphoric acid bath to remove old plating, a vibrating ceramic tumbler, bead blasting and wire brushing so that the plating would work.

They sure do look nice!

Now I can start assembling the chassis and adapting parts.

Excellent work Dave!
Thanks for sharing!

The new tensioner looks great Dave.

What did you have the hardware plated with?  Zinc, chrome, nickel?  The plating looks good.  Was it expensive?

DragBikeMike wrote on 03/17/22 at 23:35:39:


It is plated with Zinc Chromate.



Years ago there were several platers in this area, and the local fellows said you could get barrel plating done for $20 a bucket full.  Although I never got anything done that cheap - if was pretty reasonable.  For bigger parts like axles, sprockets and brake levers the price goes up as they have to hang the parts - and springs need some kind of process to plate the hardened metal......and the priced goes up.  I didn't include a photo but I also had 4 axles and 1 sprocket plated, 3 compression release springs and 2 kickstand springs.

Unfortunately the price of labor and materials has gone up since the last time I had a bucket of bolts plated 8 years ago.....the cost was more than twice what I thought it would cost.  $400!  I was really shocked when I went to pick them up and found out what it cost!  I will be able to sell the MiniTrail sprocket for a pretty good price and that will help to finance some of this.....it was a new one but the plating was tarnished and it was too ugly for somebody to put on a restored bike.

Ruttly wrote on 03/18/22 at 02:07:42:


I have been sick for a long time.....ask MMRanch!

Thursday provided a big hit on my wallet.  My wife needed front tires on her car prior to the trip to Texas.  I normally buy them as a set of 4 but she got a nail in 1 tires sidewall last fall, and then broke a cord hitting a pothole as well - so she got 2 new tires about 6 months ago.  The new tires I bought on Thursday were $513!  The lug nuts on her car are steel with a thin stainless steel shell on them.  The car is 7 years old and has 100,000 miles on it, and with all the tires changes and rotations the stainless shell on the lug nuts has become loose and distorted and I have to drive the socket onto the nut.  Since the factory lug wrench won't go on the nuts anymore I decided to buy replacement lug nuts that are solid steel with chrome plating.....a set of 20 was $148!  With the plating, tire and lug nuts.........I spent over $1,000 on Thursday!