Chain gang revisited

[DirtFlier]

Anything touted as "lifetime" or "maintenance free for life" would be extremely suspect to me.

 

[Mellow]

Anything touted as "lifetime" or "maintenance free for life" would be extremely suspect to me.

Well all chains are maintenance free for the life of the chain when you think about it... lol

 

[ARKNT]

The whole bike can be maintenance free if you want it to be.
It's life is just shortened up a bit (maybe a lot).

Brad

 

[karl]

I bought a lot of parts with lifetime warrantees. The stores are all gone now and I am still alive. That must not have been what they meant.

 

[Hondafan]

The only life-time warranties I have found true, are Snap-on, Mac-tools and Rigid products.

 

[DirtFlier]

Craftsman tools still have a replacement warranty but only if they have a comparable tool currently in stock and you find a store that does tool exchanges. For many years, I was out of luck with my broken torque wrench (paid approx $80 in mid-90s) because the local Sears store closed and none of the independent stores that carried Craftsman would make the swap.

By pure luck, I discovered early this year that Lowe's would make the swap so I exchanged my 3/8" drive torque wrench with a broken locking ring for a new one several months ago. The new model has a completely different locking mechanism which was fine with me.

 

[Coyote Chris]

Frosty says there are special tools needed to align a BMW belt....here is a guy who stripped his belt and now has to align the new one.

 

[Coyote Chris]

The obvious solution - short of a shaft - is to go with a belt.

It's been done on many lines, and Harley adopted it across the board. It takes engineering to get the power shaft on the same line as the swingarm pivot, to keep tension uniform or near...and the excuse I keep hearing is, they have to limit rear-suspension travel...

Yeah. I believe that like I believe the rot about hydraulic tappets.

My Kawasaki C10 had screw tappets. Not that bad to check and adjust. You will recall that muscle cars of the hot rod era had solid lifters. The hydrolic lifters would "pump up" at high RPM. That was then and this is now. No reason that hydrolic lifters could not be used in a medium sized non high reving bike like the Honda Pacific Coast, IIRC, used.
I am sticking to my guns about not checking the shims on my VFR. FJR, and Suzy XT.

 

[Hondafan]

The obvious solution - short of a shaft - is to go with a belt.

It's been done on many lines, and Harley adopted it across the board. It takes engineering to get the power shaft on the same line as the swingarm pivot, to keep tension uniform or near...and the excuse I keep hearing is, they have to limit rear-suspension travel...

Yeah. I believe that like I believe the rot about hydraulic tappets.

The BMW G450X had a countershaft sprocket that is mounted on the swingarm pivot. The swing arm pivot runs through the center of the output shaft. The chain slack never varies with swing arm travel.

 

[DirtFlier]

The BMW G450X was a miserable failure as a serious enduro bike and as far as I can tell, having the countershaft inline with the swingarm pivot did nothing except make it much more expensive to manufacture. They did that to eliminate the torque effect of the chain on the rear suspension, and not for chain longevity.

BMW hired David Knight/UK as their rider and he was several times world champion so his credentials were impeccable. He struggled with that bike and they (BMW) ignored all his suggestions for changes so after more than a year he quit.

To keep active, Knight bought a standard Kawasaki KD450X with his own money and did the normal mods, then entered the next world enduro event and won! Poetic justice.