Chain adjuster nut tightness?

[muzikill]

I don't see any guidance on how tight these should be. I know even with the axle bolt torqued up if you over tighten them your back to square one and you have to start again. I suppose im bothered that if i put them back on too loose they will eventually loosen off with the vibes from the bike & i know overtightening them makes the chain adjustment & measurement worthless.

[sputnik]

No answer yet i see, but i salute your timely posting. Checking the bike over yesterday, shortly after reading your post, to find a loose, er, back plate thingy that the nut should have been tight on! Never happened before although previous bikes had a second nut too. Just tightened it up a bit, but the correct answer is... ? Maybe stick another nut on? I dunno.

[Bibio]

ok i shall let you know the secret of keeping the end plates tight.

get a 6mm allan key or a sutable screwdriver etc.etc.

once you have the correct sag in your chain put allan/screwdriver on chain and wind wheel till allan/screwdriver goes into rear sprocket and tightens chain almost bow string tight.

while holding the wheel in position tighten axle nut enough so not to let anything move. turn wheel other way to remove allan/screwdriver.

tighten axle nut to torque.

there job jobbed.

[muzikill]

Took me a while to get my head round it... But I got it.

Btw what does a tight chain / loose chain do to gear changes on the sv?

[Bibio]

loose chain gives back lash.

tight chain feels smoother but accelerates chain ware.

go and try them both and find out how each feel.

[sputnik]

A while back I over tightened the chain - not by much, just think I hadn't done it at it tightest point. For the most part the chain was showing the correct amount of slack but I found shifting from 2nd to 1st was prone to not having the required effect - i,e, the down shift just kind of got stuck, no first, no neutral. Loosened it a tiny amount and problem solved. There are a lot of queries on here re gear shifts and sprocket noises that I think might just be chain adjustment issues.

My view is that a bit loose is deffo better than a bit tight where chain is concerned. The slack measurement per the manual is, I think, on the tight side for a typical chain that has seen some use. That said, my chain was dangling like a bit of overcooked spaghetti the other day!

[muzikill]

Now theres exactly what I was thinking. I too think the manual is a bit liberal in chain slack measurement. I was thinking that this causes too much strain on the output shaft thereby creating issues internally all along the gears, selector forks, dogs. Making them difficult to select a tiny bit.

[Ruffy]

Tight chain will, in addition to rapid wear on the chain and risk of breakage, also increase wear in gearbox output shaft bearing/seals as well as sprocket carrier bearings. Bad news all round. Better a bit looser, but obviously not so loose that there's a risk of jumping off the sprocket!

Assuming you're making the adjustment with the bike on some sort of stand, bear in mind also that due to the non concentric arrangement of swing arm pivot and front sprocket, compressing the suspension will cause chain to tighten as the swing arm raises. (Think triangles: In theory, chain adjustment is best done with front sprocket centre, swing arm pivot centre and rear sprocket centre all in a straight line, but I've never found a way to set and hold a bike in that position.)

[muzikill]

So in theory if im doing the adjustment with the rear up on the abba stand the chains at its slackest?. Therefore when I drop the bike back down the chain is back to being tight when it should be slack? Should there be a bit added on to the measurement then?
Its hard also to measure when the bikes got my weight added to the swingarm!

[Bibio]

pop bike on abba stand.

find tight spot in chain and make the tight spot where you are measuring the slack.

adjust chain so there is 20mm of slack. to check slack use your index finger like you are pointing at something and move chain up with finger doing that allows you to only see slack as you cant add to much force.

now because you have given the tight spot 20mm you will find that the loose spot will be about 30+mm

ooohhh don't get to anal about 20mm 30mm so on and so on. basically if the cahin is not touching the underside of the swingarm and there is slack then all is good.